CHAPTEE VIII 



AGGLUTINATION OF BACILLUS PESTIS 



The Physiological Action of Solid Sterilised Masses of 

 Plague Bacilli. — All 1 observers who, as regards plague, 

 have worked with the bacillary growth en masse have 

 found that the injection into the animal body of the 

 sterilised material in sufficient amounts ,has a protective 

 action. Haffkine himself (cf the evidence before the 

 Plague Commission) laid stress on this. It is, in his view, 

 the amount of the bacillary sediment in the prophylactic 

 fluid which determines the dose, the amount of precipitate 

 and the size of the dose standing in inverse proportion. 

 Calmette (Harben Lectures, London, 1900) also relies 

 almost entirely on the bacillary bodies (sterilised) as being 

 the essence of the prophylactic material. The same applies 

 to the German Plague Commission's recommendation. 



In my Plague Eeport for 1896 (Report of the Medical 

 Officer for 1896-1897) I had already described (p. 297) 

 a number of experiments in which the bodies of plague 

 bacilli, scraped from the agar surface and sterilised by 

 heat, were injected in repeated doses subcutaneously and 

 intraperitoneally into guinea-pigs and rabbits. I there 



1 Report of the Medical Officer of the Loc. Gov. Board for 1901-1902, p. 360 

 and passim. 



200 



