366 TIMOTHY RICHARDS LEWIS. 



notice. In the first instance, notice will be taken of the principal 

 observations which are considered to give support to MM. 

 Davaine and Pasteur's views. 



In 1875 Professor Ferdinand Cohn published the result of 

 his examinations of these organisms, and having pronounced 

 them to be bacilli, suggested that they should bear the name 

 Bacillus anthracis} This term has been generally adopted in 

 Germany and England, as, notwithstanding the theory implied 

 in both words, it is convenient to have some such brief designa- 

 tion. Cohn's figure of this bacillus is reproduced (fig. 2), as a 



Tig. 2. — Bacillus anlhracis, obtained, after death, in the blood of an ox 

 which had died of splenic disease. (After Cohn.) x 600 diam. 



graphic representation from the hand of so accomplished a my- 

 cologist is of special value, and will serve to aid in forming an 

 estimate of the relation of these organisms to others found under 

 other, though somewhat similar,' conditions. 



In 1876 an important contribution to our knowledge of these 

 organisms was published by Dr. Koch, of WoUstein (Posen), 

 who had had excellent opportunities of studying the disease.^ 

 Koch had observed that several of the statements and conclusions 

 of M. Davaine had been called in question. Some observers 

 had been able to induce fatal charbon by inoculating animals 

 with bacteridial blood without obtaining any bacteridia^ in the 

 blood of the animal thus afi'ected, although the latter (bacteridia- 

 free) blood had also induced the disease, and, moreover, 

 given rise to bacteridia in the third animal, although none 

 had been present in the second. Others, again, maintained that 

 the disease was not due solely to contagion, but was, somehow, 

 dependent on the soil, seeing that the disease was only endemic 

 in moist, swampy districts, valleys, and sea coasts ; and that the 

 mortality was greater in rainy years, and especially during 

 August and September, months in which the temperature of the 

 soil reached its highest. These circumstances could not be ex- 



' Cohn's ' Beitrage zur Biologie der Pflanzen/ Baud i, Heft. 3, 1875. 

 » Cohn's 'Beitrage,' Baud ii. Heft. 2. 



