258 MICRO-ORGANISMS IN WATER 



water. Gaffky 1 succeeded, however, in not only in- 

 ducing symptoms of septicaemia in rabbits by inoculating 

 them with water taken from the highly polluted river 

 Panke (a small stream which runs into the Spree at 

 Berlin), but he was also able to isolate the particular 

 bacterium from the blood and organs of these infected 

 rabbits. It proved to be a very virulent micro-organism, 

 for a mouse inoculated with a portion of the liver, which 

 was teeming with bacteria, of one of these infected 

 rabbits died in about thirty-six hours. This is the or- 

 ganism which is now commonly known as the bacillus 

 of rabbit septicaemia (B. cuniculicida (see p. 429), Koch- 

 Gaffky), and which is probably identical with the bacillus 

 of chicken cholera (B. cholerae gallinaruni, Pasteur). 



Lortet and Despeignes 2 passed filtered Rhone water 

 (the water supply of Lyon) through a Chamberland 

 filter, and injected the slimy deposit which collected 

 on the walls of the tubes under the skin of guinea-pigs ; 

 the latter died rapidly. They also collected some of 

 the slime which had formed on the bottom and sides of 

 the filtering plant during the filtration of the Rhone 

 water, and on inoculating it into animals were able to 

 induce virulent symptoms of septicsemia. 



Rintaro Mori, 3 again, inoculated drain-water sub- 

 cutaneously into thirty animals twenty-four mice, and 

 six guinea-pigs, the former with from three to five drops, 

 whilst the latter received 1 to 2 c.c.'s. In the course 

 of these investigations no less than three pathogenic 

 bacteria were isolated and described, viz. : I. Bacillus 

 murisepticus (Koch) (see p. 428) ; II. Kapseltragender 



1 ' Experimental! erzeugte Septicamie,' Mitthcilunr/i-ii a. d. 

 lichen GesundlicHxiuiitc, vol. i., 1881, p. 102. 



2 ' Recherches sur les Microbes pathogenes des eaux potables distri- 

 butes a la Ville de Lyon,' Eevuc d'Hygiene, vol. xii. No. ">. 



3 'Ueber pathogene Bacterien im Caiialwasser,' Zeitsclirift filr 

 Hygiene, vol. iv., 1888, p. 47. 



