144 MICRO-ORGANISMS AND DISEASE. [CHAP. 



or a little thicker ; they are rounded at their ends and often 

 include at one end a bright oval spore ; spores are present 

 also in the bacilli of the internal organs ; (as will be shown 

 below, this is not the case with the bacillus of malignant 

 anthrax.) The bacilli are either single or form short chains. 

 Some of the bacilli are motile. 



Inoculations with them into the subcutaneous tissue of 

 guinea-pigs, rabbits, sheep, and calves always prove fatal, the 

 same subcutaneous hsemorrhagic effusions being produced. 



Injections of small quantities of bacillus-containing 

 material into the veins produce only a slight febrile 

 disorder; large doses produce death. Animals in which 

 by intravenous injection of small doses slight illness has 

 been produced are afterwards protected against the fatal 

 dose. But minimal doses injected subcutaneously also 

 produce only a slight transitory swelling, and the animal so 

 treated is afterwards protected against the fatal dose (Arloing, 

 Cornevin, and Thomas). The spores of the bacilli when 

 heated up to 85 C. for six hours lose their virulence (Arloing, 

 Cornevin, and Thomas). 



(/) Bacillus anthracis. Pollender, 1 Brauell, 2 Davaine, 3 and 

 then Bellinger 4 recognised in the blood of animals dead of 

 malignant anthrax the presence of stiff short and long rods, 

 which Davaine called bacteridie du cliarbon. They were 

 identified by Cohn 5 as bacilli in morphological respects 

 similar to bacillus subtilis, except that the bacilli anthracis 

 are non-motile. 



Koch 6 showed the ubiquitous distribution of these bacilli 



1 Viertelj. f. gericht. Med. 1855. 



2 Virchow's Archiv, vol. xiv. 1858. 



3 Comptes Rendus, Ivii. 1863. 



4 Med. Centralblatt, June, 1872. 



6 Beitr. x. Biol. d. Pflanzen, vol. ii. * Ibid. vol. iii. 



