BACILLUS ANTHRACIS. 241 



fusion, and by the injection of large quantities of the spores 

 formed in this medium a fatal disease was obtained in some 

 cases which Buchner looked on as anthrax. Since it has, 

 however, been demonstrated that among the so-called hay 

 bacilli various pathogenic organisms are present which 

 resemble the anthrax bacilli and give rise to similar diseases 

 (see page 242), and that in meat infusion and putrefying blood 

 spores of these pathogenic bacilli often occur, Buchner's 

 experiments cannot be regarded as convincing; the disease 

 which was finally obtained was possibly not anthrax, but 

 malignant oedema or some other affection. This possibility 

 becomes a probability when we consider how extraordinarily 

 constant anthrax bacilli and hay bacilli have proved to be 

 under the most varied conditions of cultivation in the 

 hands of those investigators who rightly estimate the magni- 

 tude of the sources of error in cultivations in fluid substrata. 

 Further, Buchner states that he has been able to obtain a 

 transformation of anthrax bacilli in the first place into an 

 intermediate form, and then into true hay bacilli within a 

 very short time (24 hours) by cultivating them at 36 C. in 

 nutrient solutions composed of meat infusion, yolk of egg 

 (from old eggs preserved in lime water), and a little alkali. 

 The yolk of egg was not sterilised, and the inoculation was 

 made from the spleen of an animal which had died of 

 anthrax ; thus there were two possible modes of entrance of 

 extraneous germs, and that such an unintentional contamina- 

 tion had in all probability taken place is likely from the 

 totally different results obtained in numerous other cultiva- 

 tion experiments with anthrax. Recently Prazmowski has 

 in so far supported Buchner's views that he has also in 

 cultivations made by Buchner's method obtained a scum- 

 forming non-pathogenic motile bacillus which he looks on as 

 the result of the transformation of the anthrax bacilli. On 

 the other hand he ascertained that this organism was not 

 identical with Bacillus subtilis, which is totally different from 

 the anthrax bacillus in the mode of the sprouting of its 

 spores, and in its other constant characters. Experiments 

 which the author has set a-going with regard to Buchner's 

 views have only led to the conviction that the development of 

 extraneous organisms is a very frequent and scarcely avoid- 

 able occurrence in the method of experimentation described, 

 and that there was in no case any guarantee that the bacilli 

 ultimately obtained had been developed from the anthrax 

 bacilli inoculated. Kurth comes to a similar conclusion as 

 the result of his own experiments in his work on "Bact. 

 Zopfii." 



A great variability in morphological form has also been 

 wrongly attributed to the anthrax bacilli by various observers. 



16 



