Microhic Diseases Individually Considered. 187 



injection, or, more simply, by superficial scarifications 

 of the integument. The disease can also be artifi- 

 cially communicated by ingestion, or even by inhala- 

 tion. To confirm a diagnosis hypodermic inoculation 

 and scarifications are amply sufiicient. 



The substances to be inoculated are represented by 

 the blood or its serum and the diluted pulp of organs 

 rich in vessels : spleen, liver, lymphatic glands, etc.; 

 in laboratories cultures are also used for inoculation. 



The disease is transmissible by inoculation to nearly 

 all the domesticated animals. Mice, guinea pigs, and 

 rabbits are the animals which are most frequently 

 employed for experimental inoculation for diagnostic 

 purposes. The white rat possesses an almost com- 

 plete immunity, although under certain circumstances 

 it can also be succesfully inoculated. 



The dog takes the disease only when large doses 

 are employed or when the virulent substance is intro- 

 duced into the vascular system. Fowls are refractory 

 to both the natural and experimental disease ; but this 

 immunity is easily overcome : cooling a fowl to 38°, 

 by placing it in a current of cold water, is sufiicient 

 to induce the development of the disease after iuocu- 

 lution. These fowls, when again warmed, recover. 

 The temperature of fowls is, therefore, naturally too 

 high to admit of the pullulation of the charbon bacil- 

 lus. On the contrary, that oi frogs is too low, and we 

 only succeed in infecting these animals with charbon 

 when they are heated in a bath to 35°. 



In the rabbit and the gujnea pig the inoculation is fol- 

 lowed, at the end of ten to fifteen hours, by a marked 

 local oedema ; the temperature is elevated from one to 



