VIII A PATHOGENIC BACILLUS 65 



that the very great majority^ of the bacilH present in 

 the oedema fluid belonged to a species of short motile 

 bacilli which grow best aerobically, i.e. on the surface 

 of the gelatine, which do not at any time liquefy the 

 gelatine, and which do not form spores. By putting 

 a drop of the above oedema fluid into about 10 cc. of 

 sterile salt solution, and, after shaking, making from 

 this mixture, with one platinum loop, a gelatine -plate 

 cultivation and cultivations in the depth and on the 

 slanting surface of ordinary gelatine or of sugar 

 gelatine, innumerable colonies of the same species of 

 aerobic, non- liquefying, non- spore -bearing bacilli were 

 obtained. Out of six tubes containing grape-sugar 

 gelatine, inoculated from the salt mixture, only in one 

 tube in the depth did a colony of the classical liquefy- 

 ing oedema bacillus come up, so that the number of 

 these, as compared with those of the aerobic non- 

 liquefying bacilli, was insignificant. 



A drop of the oedema fluid inoculated into guinea- 

 pigs, rabbits, and mice produced, in the first two 

 species of animals, the same malignant oedema, the 

 oedema fluid again malodorous and crowded with the 

 aerobic non-liquefying short bacilli (Figs. 23 and 24). 

 In mice no oedema occurred at the seat of the inocula- 

 tion, just as in the classical malignant oedema. The 

 heart's blood of the guinea-pigs, rabbits, or mice, 

 dead from the classical malignant oedema or from our 



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