32 



of cod-liver oil is of great service generally in the treatment of 

 Phthisis few I think will deny, and the same may be said of the 

 free use of butter as an article of diet ; the latter sometimes even 

 appears to answer better than the cod oil, and is certainly more 

 willingly taken. But what possible effect can oil and butter 

 have on bacilli 1 Indeed I fear that the discovery of the tubercle 

 bacillus has not proved in some respects to be an unmixed benefit, 

 and that the result of treating patients in various ways by 

 antiseptic remedies, has been that the patient, and not the bacillus, 

 has succumbed. 



Lastly, there is one important point to refer to in connection 

 with these micro-organisms. We are surrounded on all sides 

 with certain forms of them which under ordinary circumstances 

 produce no injurious ejQfects on the human frame, living only as 

 saprophytes on dead animal or vegetable matter. Can these 

 harmless organisms under any mode of cultivation acquire virulent 

 or poisonous properties enabling them to attack living animal 

 matterl Can the common bacillus of hay infusion, the bacillus 

 subtilis be transformed into the bacillus anthracis? Or putting 

 the question more generally can a sijecific disease arise de novo ? 

 Pathologists and bacteriologists differ strongly on this point. 

 Buchner says that the transmutation of the hay bacillus into the 

 bacillus anthracis does take place. Koch and Klein say it is im- 

 possible. All admit that the bacillus anthracis, if cultivated 

 outside the human body, artificially, at a certain tempeiuture, can 

 have its properties so modified that it ceases to be poisonous, and 

 after six weeks' attenuation can be injected into the blood of a 

 living animal without producing any injurious effects : rabbits resist 

 the injurious effects at an early stage of attenuation, guinea-pigs a| 

 a later stage, while it is only after the parasite has been cultivat 



I 



