EEIATION OF PATHOGENIC TO SEPTIC BACTERIA. 55 



Bacillus anthracis? Were they attacked by it, but did not 

 die, as was the case in Pasteur's experiments with the " vac- 

 cine V Had the cultivated bacillus lost its virulence or alto- 

 gether its specific effect after the first remove from the blood, 

 and thus putting the cultivations of Buchner and Greenfield 

 altogether in the shade? These were questions that presented 

 themselves for solution. 



As I mentioned above, of the purity of the cultivation 1 had 

 no manner of doubt; for this I had the most cogent reasons. 

 I must state in connection with this, that I refer not only to 

 the use for inoculation of the cultivations in fluid pork broth, 

 but also to cultivations carried on in gelatine pork in a micro- 

 scopic cell specimen above described, where from day to day I 

 could follow the increase in number and length of the bacillus 

 threads. Such cultivations were also used for the inoculation 

 of mice, and if containing no spores, proved without effect. 

 Another point I must not omit to mention, the method or 

 rather methods of inoculation used with mice were perfectly 

 reliable, since really active material introduced in the same 

 manner proved efficacious. 



That the mice were not refractory to anthrax — [it would have 

 been a most extraordinary thing if I should have happened to 

 get hold of one refractory mouse after another ; I have not 

 found a mouse that was really refractory^ to anthrax, if the 



' In several instances of mice I have noticed what seems to denote a certain 

 resistance offered to the anthrax virus on the part of white mice, viz. that 

 some of my animals did not become affected by the virus the first or even the 

 second time they were inoculated with it. Thus I noticed some that resisted the 

 action of the cultivated Bacillus anthracis of a first cultivation; then they 

 remained also unaffected by the introduction of typical anthrax bacillus threads 

 of a second cultivation ; and on a third time being inoculated with blood 

 bacillus remained nevertheless alive. They succumbed, however, on a fourth 

 inoculation with bacillus spores of an artificial cultivation. Another mouse 

 remained unaffected after the introduction of anthrax blood filled with bacilli, 

 but succumbed to the influence of an artificial cultivation of anthrax bacilli filled 

 with spores. The inoculation in these cases was carried out in the way described 

 above, and I have no doubt that the material was properly introduced into the 

 subcutaneous tissue of the tail. Not seeing any reason to accept in the first 

 instances a refractivity of these particular animals to the anthrax virus, — for 



