ANTHRAX. 275 



found in the blood, liver, and spleen of both these 

 animals. My only object being to obtain a stock 

 of anthrax virus, and material from which to make 

 some photo-micrographs of Bacillus anthracis, the 

 experiments were not pursued any further at 

 this time. Some dried blood was preserved, how- 

 ever, and recently after an interval of three years, 

 this was used to inoculate a rabbit, which died 

 on the second day after, and furnished the mate- 

 rial for the photo-micrographs in Plate VIII. 

 These have been made with a comparatively low 

 power in order to show the enormous number of 

 bacilli in the tissues. 



If we were without satisfactory experimental 

 evidence that the Bacillus anthracis is the cause of 

 the disease anthrax, we could scarcely suppose any 

 longer that its presence in this disease is without 

 import, a mere epi-phenomenon, in the face of 

 such evidence as that given by Koch in the 

 following extract from his work on " Traumatic 

 Infective diseases" (Sydenham Society's transla- 

 tion) : 



" Although I had often previously examined the 

 blood of animals suffering from anthrax, and had thus 

 formed a high estimate as to the number of bacilli pres- 

 ent in the body of an anthracic animal, yet I was quite 

 surprised when I saw for the first time sections and por- 

 tions of organs stained in this way [in methyl-violet, 

 with carbonate of potash, see p. 187J, as e.g. the in- 

 testinal mucous membrane and the iris of a rabbit. 

 When magnified fifty diameters, such a preparation 



