Monthly Mic ical 
202 On the Real Nature Moutnal, Oct L Let0, 
tained by the particles within the imperfectly-dried mass. Com- 
plete desiccation will destroy life in both cases. Since it has been 
shown that the active powers of vaccine lymph reside in the 
minute particles of living germinal matter, and it has been proved 
that these may be dried (imperfectly) without loss of power, it is 
surely not too much to conclude that the materies morbi of other 
and allied contagious diseases is probably composed of living par- 
ticles, which have the same property of living for some time in a 
state of partial desiccation. 
Living Germs of Variola.—I have examined the contents of 
the little vesicle which rises in small-pox at different stages of its 
development, and find, as in allied pathological changes, vast multi- 
tudes of minute particles of living matter or bioplasm, but, as will 
have been anticipated from what has been already said, these pre- 
sent nothing peculiar or characteristic, nothing that would enable 
us to say if we saw these particles under the microscope that they 
were obtained from a small-pox vesicle, and would certainly give 
rise to that disease. I have made a drawing of some of the vario- 
loid bioplasts from a well-developed vesicle on the fifth day of the 
disease, and also from a vesicle which was just making its appear- 
ance. 
Living Germs of Fever.—As was shown experimentally by Dr. 
Sanderson, a mere trace of blood serum was sufficient to propagate 
cattle plague. A very small portion of blood or of the tissues of 
an infected animal had the same effect. Nay, the contagion is so 
subtle that in this as well as in many other contagious diseases, the 
breath of the diseased organism contains numbers of the potent 
particles of poison, and in this manner the very air of a consider- 
able space or even district may become infected. 
In the blood in the smaller vessels, as well as in the mucous 
secretions of the mouth, intestinal canal, and in the milk of animals 
suffering from this disorder, I have found multitudes of minute 
particles of bioplasm, which, as long as they remain alive, are, 
without doubt, disease-carrying particles. 
The disease germs of many contagious fevers will retain their 
vitality in water and other fluids for a length of time, and there is 
reason for concluding that some of these poisons not only grow and 
multiply in media different from any in the organism, but that in 
the course of such growth and multiplication they acquire still 
more virulent properties. Dr. C. Macnamara has discovered that 
cholera poison in water after exposure to the sun for a few hours 
becomes extremely virulent, and that this period corresponds with 
the development of multitudes of vibrios; but that after the lapse 
of a day or two, when the vibrios will have disappeared and 
given place to ciliated animalcules, the fluid may be taken with 
impunity. 
