BACILLUS ALVEI. 343 



bacteria, which developed in the depth of the blood 

 serum and not at the surface, proved, even when carried 

 through nine cultivations, to be very virulent, and when 

 introduced under the skin of mice and rabbits with a 

 little wool or with a syringe, to the amount of i to 1 

 drop, set up severe and fatal tetanus. He did not 

 succeed in purifying these cultivations by the ordinary 

 methods, but the growth obtained consisted chiefly of 

 the fine bacilli above described with terminal spores ; 

 the virulent organisms were typical anaerobes, and could 

 not be cultivated at all on gelatine or agar plates. In 

 order to obtain a pure cultivation of these bacilli it was 

 necessary to employ entirely new methods, in some ways 

 more complicated, and with regard to which a report will 

 be shortly published in the Zeitschriftfiir Hygiene. 



Carle and Rattone have recently excised the seat of Transmission 

 infection shortly after death from a patient who had tetanusTo 

 died of tetanus, and they injected an emulsion made ammals - 

 from the tissue into the dorsal muscles or into the 

 spinal canal of rabbits ; 11 out of 12 animals became 

 uifected with typical tetanus after two or three days' 

 incubation, and this disease corresponded absolutely in 

 its symptoms and course to that produced by Nicolaier, 

 and could be transmitted from animal to animal by 

 inoculation of portions of the sciatic nerve. Thus the 

 assumption becomes more probable that even in many 

 cases of traumatic tetanus in man the infective agents 

 discovered by Nicolaier are concerned in the disease. 

 We must, however, await further investigations on this 

 point. 



Bacillus alvei (Watson Cheyne). 



The etiology of the so-called foul brood of bees, a Bacilli of 

 disease in which an organism has been repeatedly sus- ^ broo<1 of 

 pected to be the causal agent, has been recently cleared 

 up in the manner which was to be expected by Watson 

 Cheyne and Cheshire.* The infective agents were iso- 



* Frank E. Cheshire and W. Watso Cheyne Joiirn. of the Royal 

 Microscop. Soc., 1885, 11, March. 



