BACTERIA AND ICE 165 



ments which he made with the fowl-cholera bacillus 

 and the anthrax bacillus in the presence of very 

 low temperatures. Thus he exposed a large num- 

 ber of fowl-cholera bacilli in broth to the tempera- 

 ture of liquid air, as many as 396,00x3 bacilli being 

 present in every twenty drops of the liquid. After 

 exposing them continuously for nine hours to 

 - 190 C, he had the curiosity, after thawing them, 

 to count how many were left alive, and he found 

 that an enormous mortality had taken place 

 amongst them ; for, instead of nearly 400,000 

 bacilli being present in one cubic centimetre, there 

 were only about 9,000. On the other hand, in the 

 broth tubes kept during that time in ordinary 

 surroundings, the bacilli had flourished remark- 

 ably, and had greatly increased in numbers. Thus 

 not only had no multiplication amongst these 

 bacilli taken place, which circumstance is always 

 regarded as indicative of their vital condition 

 not only, then, had their vitality been arrested 

 but a very large number of them had been actually 

 destroyed in consequence of this severe treatment ; 

 but that the residue were not only alive, but un- 

 impaired in their energies on being restored to 

 animation, was proved by their being able to 

 destroy animals, not having parted with any of 

 their malicious propensities. Dr. Belli carried out 

 similar experiments with the bacilli of anthrax 



