286 CONTAGIOUS DISEASES. 



organisms, were violent inflammation of all the muscles of the 

 abdomen and limbs, and here and there, especially on the ears, 

 bullse formed containing gas. The blood was diffluent, and on 

 examining these animals immediately after death, M, Pasteur 

 found that the muscles were filled with active vibrios of putre- 

 faction, and in the peritoneal cavity they had undergone extra- 

 ordinary development ; one drop of this serosity taken from an 

 animal still living affected another animal profoundly, while 

 a drop of blood from the heart had no effect. The spores are 

 very tenacious of life, resisting many germicides. The rods 

 are destroyed by dry heat at a temperature of 212° F., whilst 

 the spores require to be exposed for three hours to a dry 

 temperature of 28.3° F. before they are killed. Some writers 

 assert that the spores resist the action of boiling water, but 

 Hamilton says that they are killed after a few minutes' boiling: 

 the rods, however, perish in a moist atmosphere at a temperature 

 of about 140° F. 



Putrefaction and the action of carbonic acid gas, whilst 

 destructive to the non-sporulated rods, have no effect upon the 

 spores themselves ; both spores and rods are, liowever, killed 

 in ten minutes by corrosive sublimate — 1 per 1000 solution — 

 within twenty-four hours by a two per cent, solution of chlorine, 

 bromine or iodine, and strong sunlight ; but they seem to resist 

 five per cent, solution after twenty days' exposure, twelve days 

 phenic acid five per cent., and nineteen days ten per cent, solution 

 of lysol. Iodoform seems to have no influence either on the spores 

 or rods. Whilst the rods are destroyed by putrefaction, it is 

 otherwise with the spores, which liave a mucli greater degree of 

 resistance, and it is due to this retention of virulence by the 

 spores that anthrax continues in buildings, grass lands, dried 

 fodder, and water. Grass and hay grown upon land where 

 anthrax carcases have been buried months before have conveyed 

 the disease, and the same may be stated of water, particularly 

 spring water obtained from wells situated at a considerable 

 distance, but below the graves of such animals. 



Again, dilution of the fluid containing the bacilli with a 

 moderate amount of water has no effect on its virulence, but 

 a large quantity destroys it, and traces of carbolic acid prevent 

 the development of the bacilli. 



It has been stated that the bacilli destroy life — (1.) By acting 



