4 DK. E. KLEIN. 



* Sitzungsb. d. Math.-Physikal. Classe d. k. b. Akad.'d. Wiss. 

 zu Miinchen/ 1880. Heftiii, p. 368 et passim. I shall have 

 opportunity to return below to Buchner's assertions in detail, 

 as I shall have to criticise some of his facts and deductions, but 

 at present I wish to point out that one of Buchner's funda- 

 mental propositions, viz. that the Bacillus anthracis and the 

 bacillus of hay are morphologically (with the exception of the 

 motility of the latter) identical, is altogether erroneous. The 

 tvvo kinds of bacilli are not identical, and never become iden- 

 tical, however long they may be cultivated in artificial cultiva- 

 tions; and on this point I must with Koch (Cohn's 'Beitrage,' 

 ii, Bnd. iii, and * Aetiol. d. Milzbr.,^ p. 21), most decidedly 

 oppose Buchner. It is true that Buchner admits some very 

 essential differences between the two, but these differences 

 refer to chemical and functional relations. I shall point out 

 below in detail these differences. 



Buchner cultivated, at a temperature of 35° — 37° C, the 

 Bacillus anthracis, originally derived from the spleen of a 

 white mouse dead of anthrax, in 0'5 per cent, solution of 

 Liebig's meat extract, with or without the addition of peptone 

 or sugar. As a first result of his observations on white mice 

 Buchner found (p. 383) " that the infectious activity of the 

 fungus becomes the more diminished the more generations it 

 had passed in the artificial cultivations." But on looking 

 carefully into his facts we notice that the above result does not 

 come out in so simple and regular a manner as is represented 

 in the above sentence ; for in one series of cultivations of 

 Bacillus anthracis, carried on in a nourishing fluid of 10 

 parts of Liebig's meat extract, 8 parts of peptone, and 1000 

 parts of water, Buchner found (p. 383 et passim) that the 

 inoculations with the first, second, third, and fourth remove or 

 generation produced always anthrax, whereas those with the 

 fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth did not yield any positive 

 results "if the same quantity of infective material was used," 

 but " if larger quantities are used positive results were ob- 

 tained." In like manner in other series of cultivations he finds 

 great differences as regards the activity of the bacillus of the 



