284 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



as certain the stamping out of splenic fever as the 

 stoppage of the plague of pebrine by the researches of 

 Pasteur.* One small item of statistics will show what 

 this implies. In the single district of Novgorod in 

 Russia, between the years 1867 and 1870, over fifty-six 

 thousand cases of death by splenic fever, among horses, 

 cows, and sheep were recorded. Nor did its ravages 

 confine themselves to the animal world, for during the 

 time and in the district referred to, five hundred and 

 twenty-eight human beings perished in the agonies of 

 the same disease. 



A description of the fever will help you to come to 

 a right decision on the point which I wish to submit 

 to your consideration. ' An animal/ says Dr. Burdon 

 Sanderson, ' which perhaps for the previous day has 

 declined food and shown signs of general disturbance, 

 begins to shudder and to have twitches of the muscles 

 of the back, and soon after becomes weak and listless. 

 In the meantime the respiration becomes frequent and 

 often difficult, and the temperature rises three or four 

 degrees above the normal; but soon convulsions, af- 

 fecting chiefly the muscles of the back and loins, usher 

 in the final collapse, of which the progress is marked 

 by the loss of all power of moving the trunk or ex- 

 tremities, diminution of temperature, mucous and 

 sanguinolent alvine evacuations, and similar discharges 

 from the mouth and nose.' In a single district of 

 Russia, as above remarked, fifty-six thousand horses, 

 cows, and sheep, and five hundred and twenty-eight 

 men and women, perished in this way during a period 



* Surmising that the immunity enjoyed by birds might arise 

 from the heat of their blood, which destroys the bacillus, Pasteur 

 lowered their temperature artificially, inoculated them, and killed 

 them. He also raised the temperature of guinea-pigs after inocu- 

 lation, and saved them. It is needless to dwell for a moment on 

 the importance of this experiment. 



