£66 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [Sept 



were passed, some witb a very sluggish rnotion, but short 

 and dumpy in appearance. A day later, 18 dejections had 

 been passed in the 24 hours; these contained little colo- 

 nies of the commas, as well as single and double shaped 

 ones. The perivisceral fluid of this fly was also examin- 

 ed, and in upwards of fifty fields only four curved bacilli 

 were found. It is just possible that the few curved ba- 

 cilli found in this fluid might have been carried in by the 

 scissors used to make the incisions into the integument. 



Another female blowfly was now made the subject of 

 further experiments, as no commas were found in the nor- 

 mal dejections. It was fed on sugar dampened with agar 

 culture that had been inoculated with prepared meat in- 

 fusion. Curved bacilli being found in the dejections, 

 some motile, an inoculation was made into a prepared 

 meat infusion kept at 90 degrees F.; on the fourth day in 

 four excreta thirty crooked bacilli were found, but three 

 days later scarcely one could be seen. The culture was 

 changed for another similar four days old and used to in- 

 oculate a fresh meat infusion, as the former was accident- 

 ally upset. This fly was sadly weak on its legs but 

 strong on wing. This fresh culture was used to moisten the 

 sugar. 



The fly feeding from this freely, passed three liquid 

 dejections. Only part of these were used to inoculate a 

 clear meat infusion, which gave turbidity after thirty-two 

 hours and yielded both long and short undulating rods, 

 with only a few single commas, which a weak solution of 

 aniline acetate rendered very clear. The fly, although 

 much revived, could not crawl to the top of the tumbler, 

 hence it was fed from the agar culture, and in two days 

 thirty-one dejections were passed; they contained only a 

 few curved rods, but the mixed dejections were used to 

 inoculate a gelatine tube, as I had not yet succeeded in 

 inoculating gelatine from the excreta. The tube was 

 kept at room temperature 65 degrees Fahr. 



