Zymotic and Germ Diseases 257 



Splenic Fever 1 * is a virulent and fatal disease which attacks not only 

 the human race but also horses, cattle and sheep. Tyndall says that in Novogorod, a dis- 

 trict of Russia, from the year 1867 to 1870, fifty-six thousand horses, cows and sheep, and 

 five hundred and twenty-eight men and women were destroyed by this disease. And 

 large numbers have perished in other parts of Europe. This disease is caused by a para- 

 sitic organism, the nature and habits of which were finally made known by the investi- 

 gations of Dr. Koch. Beginning as a spore this organism, in an appropriate fluid, in a few 

 hours develops into a rod-like body which subsequently grows by adding to its length till 

 that is several hundred times greater than its diameter. Inside of this filament there 

 soon appear a series of dots, which d-evelop into ovoid bodies occupying the entire inside 

 of the filament, like peas in a pod. These are the spores. Later, the filament dissolves, 

 leaving the spores in a long row ready to repeat the operation. These spores may be 

 dried and kept for years without losing any of their malignant virtue. In order to give 

 the disease of Splenic Fever they must be taken into the blood, where they produce the 

 morbid alteration and degradation which soon disqualifies it for the nutrition of the tis- 

 sueSi and ends by the death of the victim. Mice whose blood was inoculated with these 

 spores soon died. But a mouse might eat a diseased tissue and so take the virus into the 

 stomach with impunity. The name of this parasite is Bacillus Anthracis. It is singular 

 that it will not propagate in the blood of dogs, partridges or sparrows ; but flourishes in 

 the blood of mice, guinea pigs and rabbits. The immunity of the birds appears to be due 

 to the high temperature of their blood, which is about 109 F. against 98 as the temper- 

 ature in man. 



The disease among the silk worms of France, known as Pebrine, is 

 caused by a vibrio called Psorospermia, which pervades all the tissues of the body, and 

 is always fatal-. The discovery of the nature and cause of this disease is due to Pasteur. 

 Psora vulgarly called itch, scratch, Scotch fiddle, &c. , is well known 

 to be caused by a small insect, which can be communicated from one to another by con- 

 tact. It is more annoying than dangerous. 



Muscardine A disease existing among silk worms in France 50 years 

 ago, was caused by a fungus which grew in the blood of the living animal, and which made 

 its appearance on the outside of the body after death. The disease could be conveyed to 

 other worms and to other species of Lepidoptera by inoculation, and it could also be pro- 

 duced in otherwise healthy and untainted Silkworms, or other insects, by feeding them 

 for a time in close, damp bottles or boxes. Once developed, by whatever means, it be- 

 came contagious, and very fatal. 



Septicaemia and Pyaemia Blood poisoning which sometimes super- 

 venes upon wounds, are accompanied and supposed to be caused by bacilli or micrococci. 

 Bacteria have been found during life in the blood of septicsemic patients, and they are 

 usually observed after death. Inoculation of healthy animals by septicaemic blood from 

 an animal of the same or a nearly relative species, will convey the same disease. 



Septicaemia induced in mice by the experiments of Koch, were accompanied by rod- 

 like bacteria, while in that produced in rabbits the organisms were oval shaped. These 

 diseases could not be transferred by inoculation from either to the other. It would ap- 

 pear from these facts that the organisms in blood poisoning are from the air and fall into 

 the exposed wounds where they set up fermentation accompanied by their own growth 

 and reproduction like torula in a saccharose solution. Blood poisoning is fatal in a 

 majority of cases. 



There are two kinds of small-pox ; viz. , Variola and Varioloid. The 

 latter is merely a milder type of the former, and is the form the disease takes when it is 

 communicated to a r person who has had small-pox or cow-pox, or when small-pox is com- 

 municated to a fresh patient by inoculation instead of the ordinary miasmatic contagion. 

 When the blood is inoculated with the small-pox virus the disease develops in a shorter 

 time, by several days, than otherwise. In the disease following this inoculation the erup- 

 tion is slight, the pocks rarely exceed 100, and many do not suppurate. The mortality 

 in this disease, when it was cultivated artificially, was from one-half of one to three per cent. 

 "Transferring the virus from persons successively inoculated, the disease becomes pro- 

 gressively more and more modified until at length, as a rule, to which there are excep- 

 tions, the eruption consists only of the one pustule formed at the point of inoculation, 

 with a few pustules developed around this mother pustule." 1 As a rule, a person who 



* I suppose this is the same disease called " blood " by Dr. Bastian. 

 1 Flint's Medicine, P. 1041. 



