312 MICRO-ORGANISMS IN WATER 



carefully borne in mind that the sporeless anthrax bacilli 

 employed by different investigators have had totally 

 different origins ; thus, whilst some have used anthrax 

 bacilli taken directly from the blood or organs of ani- 

 mals dead of anthrax, others have relied upon young 

 artificial cultures of anthrax believed to be free from 

 spores. It is possible that these totally different sources 

 of the bacilli may account for some of the discrepancies 

 which have arisen. There appears, however, to be no 

 doubt that the anthrax bacilli themselves enjoy only a 

 very short life when introduced into water, either sterile 

 or otherwise ; thus numerous observers have recorded 

 their disappearance in the course of a few days. On 

 the other hand, in some cases, although introduced into 

 the water in the bacillar form only, anthrax has been 

 still discoverable in the living state after months. As 

 far as such cases have been further examined, however, 

 it has been proved that the anthrax bacilli introduced 

 into the water have formed spores, with the production 

 of which the almost indefinite persistence of vitality is 

 ensured. Moreover, that in some cases in which an- 

 thrax bacilli are introduced into water spores should be 

 formed and in others not, appears to be mainly dependent 

 on the temperature at which the water is preserved. 

 Some recent experiments, conducted by one of us in 

 conjunction with Dr. Templeman, of Dundee, place this 

 matter in a very clear light. 



In these experiments the spleen of a mouse dead of 

 anthrax was broken up in a little sterile water, and a 

 small quantity of this was then distributed in a large 

 volume of steam-sterilised Thames w^ater ; the latter, 

 after being thus infected, was divided up into a number 

 of sterile test-tubes, some of which were placed in a 

 dark cupboard (temperature 13 C.), others in a refri- 

 gerator (5 C.), and others in an incubator (19 C.). 



