VIKULENT DISEASES. 199 



anaerobic germs of putrefaction. These vibrios repro- 

 duce themselves by spores. In the vibrio of acute 

 septicaemia this is the mode of generation. Short or 

 long jointed filaments show themselves studded with 

 brilliant points, which are precisely the spores of 

 which we speak. Experience proves that these spores 

 resist perfectly the poisonous action of compressed 

 oxygen. Inoculating an animal with blood which is at 

 the same time septic and splenic, after the blood has 

 been compressed, the septic germs, remaining alive, 

 produce death, although neither bacteria nor filaments 

 may be perceptible in its blood at the moment of 

 death. It was likewise from Chartres that M. Paul 

 Bert obtained his supply of splenic fever blood. The 

 blood he had received was without doubt not only 

 splenic but also septic. The filaments of bacteria and 

 the filaments of septic vibrios had perished under the 

 influence of the compressed oxygen ; but the spores were 

 there, and the great pressure of oxygen gas had not 

 affected them. The new contagium which had 

 appeared, and which had killed the inoculated 

 animals, was due to these spores. 



As regards the proof that this virulence in the 

 blood of the body of an animal which has died of 

 splenic fever is really the effect of the septic vibrio, 

 Pasteur, assisted by Joubert and a new assistant, M. 

 Chamberland, has given that proof, as he did in the 

 case of the bacterium of splenic fever, by resorting to 



