88 THE MICROSCOPE. 



The Bacillus. — It seems to have been abundantly proven by 

 very capable pathologists and microscopists that many of the dis- 

 eases prevalent among humanity are directly attributable to a minute 

 living organism called bacillus. Different diseases are supposed to 

 be the result of different forms of this organism — in other words, 

 every disease has its own pecular bacillus. 



The disease to which sheep are subject, on the continent, known 

 as anthrax, has been proven to be caused by a pecular bacillus that 

 invades the blood and tissues of the animal. But what is still more 

 curious, these little animals are propagated in certain fluids, such as 

 the cerum of the blood, sound animals inoculated therefrom when 

 the disease becomes established in the inoculated creature. These 

 bacilli are also "cultured" by producing several generations of 

 them, inoculating a prepared fluid in which they are found to 

 flourish, first from the diseased animal, then a fresh fluid from the 

 last inoculation, and so on, until the culture is several generations 

 remote from the original bacilli. 



Now, if an animal is inoculated with this last culture, it is 

 found to produce a mild form of the disease, that protects the 

 animal from an attack of the more virulent one, just as we vaccinate 

 with the cow-pox to cause a mild form of varioloid exempting the 

 subject from small-pox. 



Extensive experiments have been carried on in this line, vac- 

 cinations having been made with the bacilli of scarlet fever, typhoid 

 fever, erysipelas, diphtheria, consumption, and more recently, 

 whooping-cough, with a view to preventing these highly contagious 

 and dangerous diseases. As yet, experiments have been confined 

 to animals, but we doubt not that sufficient knowledge will thus 

 be obtained to warrant the inoculation of human beings for the 

 prevention of the diseases enumerated, as well as for many others. 



To show the results of the experiments of M. Pasteur in culti- 

 vating the bacillus of malignant charbon and inoculating sheep 

 therewith, we have learned from the reports of the veterinary 

 society of Eure-et-Loire, that the number of sheep vaccinated in 

 this department was 79,312. Before vaccination the annual losses 

 on these flocks amounted to 7,237, or about 9 per cent.; since vac- 

 cination, only 518 animals have perished, or about -^^ of one per 

 cent. There were also vaccinated 4,652 cattle, among which the 



