VIRULENT DISEASES. 187 



Jaillard and Leplat returned to the charge, and 

 this time with entirely new and unexpected experi- 

 ments. They inoculated some rabbits, as Davaine 

 desired, with the blood of a cow which had died of 

 splenic fever. The rabbits died rapidly, but without 

 showing before or after their death the least trace of 

 bacteria. Other rabbits, inoculated with the blood of 

 the first, perished in the same manner, but it was 

 still impossible to discover any parasite in their blood. 

 MM. Jaillard and Leplat offered Davaine some drops of 

 this blood. Davaine, taking up the experiments of 

 his opponents, confirmed the exactitude of the facts 

 they had announced, but concluded by saying that 

 these two professors had not employed true splenic 

 fever blood, but the blood of a new disease, unknown 

 up to that time, which Davaine proposed to call the 

 cow disease. 



* The blood which we used,' replied MM. Jaillard 

 and Leplat, ' was furnished to us by the director of the 

 knacker's establishment of Sours, near Chartres, and 

 this director is undeniably competent as to the know- 

 ledge of splenic fever.' 



Full of sincerity and conviction, MM. Jaillard 

 and Leplat recommenced their experiments, using 

 this time the blood of a sheep which had died of splenic 

 fever, and which M. Boutet, the most experienced 

 veterinary surgeon of the town of Chartres, had pro- 

 cured for them. Their results were the same as those 



