184 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



(Fros.,) and also coremium, a luxuriant and fasciculated form of peni- 

 cilliuui. 



It is eousiderod needless to give the details of all the culture experi- 

 ments undertaken with this blood ; suffice it to say that it was placed ou 

 various substrata and compared witli liealthy blood, and the results 

 were in all cases the same; i. e., production of penicillium, coremium, 

 and mucor. 



In cultures undertaken with the urine, either no result was obtained 

 or the usual penicillium made its appearance. 



Culture of the bile upon lemon gave the same results, but the penicil- 

 lium growth was much less than when the blood was used. Disk-like 

 masses of mycelium, (the Sclemtia of Hallier,) usually bright yellow in 

 color, were produced alike with diseased and healthy blood. 



To judge, therefore, from the specimens that we have had the oppor 

 tunity of examining, it would appear that in the blood, bile, and urine of 

 cattle slaughtered in Texas, apparently healthy while alive, but present- 

 ing after death the appearances considered characteristic of the splenic 

 fever, there are present minute bodies corresponding to the micrococcus 

 of Hallier, which exhibit the same behavior with reagents as the spores 

 of fungi. 



In the bile and urine bacteria and cryptococcus cells also occur. The 

 micrococcus granules, however, have no specific characteristics, and can- 

 not be distinguished from similar bodies which are to be seen in any 

 blood in an incipient stage of putrefaction. Thus, on the 4th of June, 

 vacuum tubes were filled with blood from a healthy sheep slaughtered 

 near Washington, and this blood, examined sixty hours afterwards, con- 

 tained in equal abundance these same bodies (micrococcus) that were 

 found in the blood of the Texas cattle. The attempt to give these 

 micrococcus molecules a special and important character by the "cultiva- 

 tion " in various ways of the blood containing them, also failed. In all 

 cases the fungous growth that appeared upon the cultivated material 

 was composed of the commonest molds, and, instead of being unique 

 as to species or even genus, comprised various forms and sizes of 

 cryptococcus, torula, penicillium, coremium, mucor, and the so-called 

 schizosporangia of Hallier, of all forms and sizes; these various fungi 

 being either simultaneously or successively developed. JNIoreover, all 

 these varieties of fungi can be also developed by a similar cultivation of 

 healthy blood, though not as rapidly nor in as great luxuriance. 



The fact that in our cultivations we never obtained any growths of 

 ustilago, coniothecium, or tilletia, Avhich were so frequently produced in 

 riallier's experiments, is probably due to the circumstance that no speci- 

 mens of those fungi were ever brought into the room where our exjjeri- 

 ments were conducted. 



In cases of splenic fever of cattle our experiments, therefore, fail to 

 establish the presence of any peculiar or special cryptogamic germs in 

 the blood ; and, instead of supporting the notion that the micrococcus 



