63 



berg's present experiments, like all his previous work, 

 evince great care, skill, and a sincere desire for truth 

 that cannot be too much admired ; yet his deductions 

 would be far more convincing if he would substitute a 

 solid for the liquid culture medium. 



Sattler has recently found rnicrococci, apparently iden- 

 tical with those of gonorrhoea, in the conjunctival granu- 

 lations, and affirms that inoculation with the organisms, 

 isolated by cultivation, induced the disease in a human 

 subject. 



Micrococci, then, exist in the human body, locally and 

 generally ; yet excepting gonorrhoea there is no decisive 

 evidence that a specific micrococcus is associated ex- 

 clusively with any one specific morbid process in the 

 human subject. But I would again remind you that many 

 of these organisms are individually so minute that absolute, 

 and hence comparative, measurements cannot be as yet 

 accurately made ; further, that micrococci morphologically 

 identical may be physiologically distinct. Hence it can- 

 not be asserted at present that the same species is present 

 in septicaemia, pyaemia, etc., although the contrary is not 

 yet established beyond doubt. 



Turning to the other tribes of bacteria, however, we 

 find more definite information ; for in size, shape, mode 

 of propagation, often of locomotion also, they present 

 such differences that a distinction into species is often 

 possible. 



The disease variously designated anthrax, splenic 

 fever, malignant pustule, woolsorters' disease, charbon, 

 and by the Germans Milzbrand, is proven to be not only 

 associated with, but also caused by, a bacillus. About 

 this all controversy has ceased ; inoculation with the 

 bacilli, isolated by filtration, flask cultures, by cultures 

 upon solids, by scores of observers, have always and in- 

 variably given the same result ; Koch has even induced 

 the disease by inoculation with the one hundred and fif- 

 teenth successive culture upon solids. Further experi- 

 mentation is as unnecessary as further proof that a dog 

 can be poisoned with strychnine. Anthrax is as yet 



