186 CONTAGIOUS DISEASES. 



staining, which I have varied as much as possible. I have examined 

 them with much care, and I believe I am now in a position to con- 

 clude : — 1. Tlie lesion which you have submitted to me is certainly 

 not that of pleuro-pneumonia ; 2. It is a bacteridian broncho-pneu- 

 monia, which, in all jprohability, is of the same nature as that I have 

 already described. On the latter point I am not so positive as on the 

 first, for although the distribution is very analogous, and the microbes 

 have the same form and the same dimensions, and react in the same 

 way to the different staining methods, you know as well as I do that 

 we cannot, on these alone, affirm the identity of two microbes. In 

 order to do this we must cultivate your bacteria, and then study them 

 comparatively with mine, to see how they behave in the diff'erent 

 culture media, and observe their pathogenic action on various animals. 

 By doing this I shall doubtless be able to affirm or deny that we are 

 dealing with one and the same organism. However this may be, I , 

 again repeat that it appears probable to me that you and I have 

 studied one and the same disease. E. Nocard." 



A statement having been made that the microbe found was 

 an ordinary putrefactive one, I wrote to Dr. Wray, and I 

 append his reply, with the simple observation that when the 

 lung arrived in Edinburgh it was free from putrefaction: — 



" No. 39 Belvedere Road, Upper Norwood, 

 London, S.E., %th January 1892. 



" W. Williams, F.R.C.V.S., &c., Principal, 



New Veterinary College, Edinburgh, Scotland. 



" My Dear Professor — In reply to yours of the 6th instant, the 

 section of lung that I showed you on 18th April 1891 was taken from 

 the lungs of a bullock that was slaughtered at Deptford on the 

 afternoon of 14th April 1891. The lungs from the said buUock were 

 sent to the Royal Veterinary College the same afternoon. The next 

 morning, 15th April, I inspected the lungs in company with Professor 

 Duguid, and Doctors Coghill and Shaw, the section I took you 

 being cut oft' immediately after the inspection, Professor Duguid cut- 

 ting oft' an adjoining section at the same time. The section I had 

 was placed in a tin box, and there kept until I arrived home the same 

 evening, was then taken out of the box and wrapped in a linen cloth 

 saturated with a solution of bichloride of mercury [1 to 1500], and 

 placed on ice, where it remained until 10 p.m. of the 16th, when it 

 was taken out of the cloth, re-saturated with the solution, then packed 

 in a clean box, having been removed from the box twice previous to 

 your seeing it on the morning of the 18th. I took the utmost care 



