21 



or wool (Persian mohair especially) is washed, the washings 

 pass into drains, and thence sometimes over the surface of 

 meadows, and so on to the S3'stems of animals feeding 

 there. 



The fact that this disease was associated with a Bacte- 

 rium seems to have heen first discovered by Pollender in 1849. 

 The subject was subsequently studied by Davaine in France 

 and Coin in Germany, by whom the name Bacilbis Anthracis 

 was given to it. All parts of the body contain the Bacillus. 

 The Bacillus Anthracis consists of a short motionless rod 

 varying from the 1,250th to the 2,500th of an inch in length 

 and is about the i8,oooth of an inch in breadth. In the blood 

 the Bacillus is multiplied by transverse fission but in artificial 

 cultivating multiplication by spores also occurs. Pasteur 

 has specially studied this Bacillus, and not only has he 

 shown that it may be propagated by Klebs' method of frac- 

 tional cultivation, but that if special precautions are taken 

 the virus may be attenuated. I will not trouble you with 

 the details of his method, because, although the fact is 

 admitted, the explanation of Pasteur is disputed by other 

 eminent observers, especially Koch and Klein. This at- 

 tenuated virus has been used after the manner of vaccine, 

 and as an example of the success of the method, I may 

 mention that in the department of Eure et Loire, among a 

 large flock consisting of a mixture of vaccinated and un- 

 vaccinated animals, the mortality of the unprotected was four 

 times greater than of the protected. It is further stated that 

 1,650 inoculations of the attenuated virus were made without 

 a single death. These facts are not I believe disputed, but 

 unfortunately experimenters in other countries have failed to 

 obtain an equal success. 



If time permitted many other investigations of a 

 similar nature could be recorded. For example you are all 

 probably aware of Pasteur's experiments on Chicken 

 Cholera, a disease by the way in no manner related to 

 Cbolera in man. Klebs also showed that Cattle Plague was 

 due to a special Micrococcus. Klein similarly explained 



