THE ANTHRAX PROTEIN 195 



Heim and Geiger 1 grew anthrax bacilli in eggs after the 

 method of Hueppe, extracted with alcohol, precipitated 

 the extract with mercuric chloride, filtered, treated the 

 filtrate with platinum chloride, decomposed the precipitate 

 thus formed with hydrogen sulphide, filtered, rendered 

 alkaline with potassium hydrate, and divided into two 

 portions, one of which was extracted with ether and the 

 other with benzol. The amount of material removed with 

 ether was small, but that obtained in the benzol extract 

 was large. When either of these residues was taken up in 

 a few cubic centimeters of feebly acidified water and injected 

 intra-abdominally into mice, it caused salivation and 

 lacrymatiqn, followed by muscular convulsions and death. 

 The smallest dose of the benzol extract which proved to 

 be fatal was 0.5 c.c., while a similar amount of the ether 

 extract caused only transient symptoms. Apparently no 

 controls were employed by these investigators, and the 

 evidence that they obtained any poison from the anthrax 

 bacillus is too slight to deserve serious attention. 



Ivanow 2 has demonstrated the presence of certain volatile 

 acids, formic, acetic, and caproic, in anthrax cultures, but 

 there is no proof that the bacilli had anything to do with 

 the production of these bodies, or that they are concerned 

 in any way in the symptomatology or pathology of the 

 disease; certainly these same volatile acids are found in 

 the cultures of many bacteria, both pathogenic and non- 

 pathogenic. 



Petri and Massen 3 detected hydrogen sulphide in anthrax 

 cultures, but inasmuch as at the same time they found this 

 gas in every one of the thirty-six other bacteria examined, 

 it cannot be said to be of any specific importance. More- 

 over, spectroscopic examination of anthrax blood fails to 

 show the presence of hydrogen sulphide or any of its com- 

 pounds, and there is no evidence that this gas has any 

 connection with the disease. 



1 Lehrbuch der Bakteriolog. Untersuchungen u. Diagnostik, 1894, 229. 



2 Ann. de 1'Institut Pasteur, 1892, vi, 131. 



3 Arbeiten aus d. kaiserlich. Gesundheitsamte, 1893, viii, 318. 



