VIRULENT DISEASES. 197 



developed simultaneously in the inoculated animal, 

 but generally one precedes the other. The septic 

 contagium is the quickest in its action ; it generally 

 causes death before the splenic fever has had time to 

 develop itself and to produce appreciable effects. 



We are now in a position to explain all the contra- 

 dictory results obtained by MM. Jaillard and Leplat on 

 one side, and by Davaine on the other. In a country 

 which splenic fever had made famous, the Departement 

 d'Eure-et-Loir, they had asked for a little splenic 

 fever blood. Now, what takes place in a farm where 

 an animal has died of this disease ? The dead body 

 is thrown upon a dungheap, or into some shed or stall, 

 until the knacker's cart happens to pass. The knacker 

 takes his own time, and the body often remains there 

 twenty-four or forty-eight hours. The blood taken 

 from this animal is more or less invaded by putrefac- 

 tion, and vibrios are mingled with the bacteria of splenic 

 fever, the development of which is arrested the moment 

 the animal dies. In short, it may be easily conceived 

 that an experimenter writing to Chartres to procure 

 some splenic fever blood might, without his know- 

 ledge, or the knowledge of his correspondent, receive 

 blood at the same time both splenic and septic. And 

 this septicaemia is sometimes manifold, for a special 

 septicaemia may be said to correspond to every sort of 

 vibrio of putrefaction. 



Such were the circumstances which, without their 



