MICROPHYTES FOUND IN THE BLOOD. 381 



spherical in shape -'^ but if the very valuable micro-photographs 

 of tliese bodies accompanying Koch's subsequent paper^ be 

 referred to, it will be found that, the ' spores ' are very decidedly 

 of a long-oval form. The pig- bacillus ' spores ' have according 

 to Klein along diameter of O'OUOo mm., whereas those of anthrax 

 = 00015— -002 mm. "At first/' writes Dr. Klein, " I misin- 

 terpreted the spores, regarding them as a kind of micrococci, and 

 only after repeated observations have I succeeded in tracing them 

 through their different stages of development." Unfortunately 

 Dr. Klein has not detailed the grounds on which this very 

 important statement is based, nor are figures given. It can 

 scarcely be supposed that any of the figures in the plate are 

 intended to represent the germination of a particular spore. As 

 this distinguished observer well knows, it is not what takes 

 place before the supposed germination, or after it, which has 

 been the subject of debate for so many years in connection with 

 the development of the schizomi/cetes, but the act itself. None 

 of the figures furnished by Dr. Klein present any resemblance to 

 Dr. E wart's germination-figure (fig. 9) in which the process is 

 unmistakably depicted, but some of them are somewhat like 

 those of Koch (fig. 5) ; on the other hand. Dr. Klein writes 

 regarding the conclusions of the observer who first ventured to 

 pronounce these bodies in Bacillus anthracis to be spores, " I 

 entirely differ from Dr. Koch with regard to the mode of germi- 

 of the spores of bacillus." The points of diff'erence are matters 

 of secondary moment, and need not be specially referred to 

 here. 



Dr. Klein concludes his paper thus : " Seeing that splenic 

 fever, pneumo-enteritis, and specific septicaemia pussess a great 

 affinity in anatomical respects, and seeing that in splenic fever 

 and pneumo-enteritis there is a definite species of bacillus, — the 

 difference of species being sufficiently great to account for the 

 differences in the two diseases — we may with some probability 

 expect that also the third of the group, viz. specific septicaemia, 

 is due to a bacillus. This, however, remains to be demon- 

 strated." 



Dr. Klein, therefore, believes that whilst the evidence adduced 

 by himself in support of the cause of pneumo-enteritis in the pig 

 being a bacillus is sufficient to warrant a positive statement m 

 the affirmative, that adduced by Davaine, Pasteur, and others 

 in favour of a like cause for septicaemia is not. 



' Cobn's • B'eitrage,' Band ii, Heft. 3, Taf. xvi, 1877. 



