EXPERIMENTS WITH ANTHRAX BACILLUS 267 



only are under consideration, and for the sake of brevit3% the 

 relation to anthrax of the non-biting flies only will be considered 

 here. 



The earliest bacteriological evidence in support of this belief 

 was Raimbert (1869). He experimentally proved that the house- 

 fly and the meat-fly were able to carry the anthrax bacillus, which 

 he found on their proboscides and legs. In one experiment two 

 meat-flies were placed from twelve to twenty-four hours in a bell- 

 jar with a dish of dried anthrax blood. One guinea-pig was 

 inoculated with a proboscis, two wings and four legs of a fly, and 

 another with a wing and two legs. Both were dead at the end of 

 sixty hours, anthrax bacilli being found in the blood, spleen and 

 heart. He concludes : " Les mouches qui se posent sur les cadavres 

 des animaux morts du Charbon sur les depouilles, et s'en nouris- 

 sent, ont la faculte de transporter les virus charbonneux depos^ 

 sur la peau pent en traverser les differentes couches." Davaine 

 (1870) also carried out simihir experiments with G. vomitoria 

 which w^as able to carry the anthrax bacillus. Bollinger (1874) 

 found the bacilli in the alimentary tract of flies that he had 

 caught on the carcase of a cow dead of anthrax. Sangree (1899) 

 allowed a fly to walk over a plate culture of anthrax and then 

 transferred it to a sterile plate; colonies of anthrax naturally 

 developed in its tracks. Buchanan (1907) placed C. vomitoria 

 under a bell-jar with the carcase of a guinea-pig (deprived of skin 

 and viscera) which had died of anthrax. He then transferred 

 them to agar medium and a second agar capsule, both of wdiich sub- 

 sequently showed a profuse growth of B. anthracis, as one might 

 expect. Specimens of M. domestica were also given access to the 

 carcase of an ox w^hich had died of anthrax ; they all subsequently 

 caused gi'owths of the anthrax bacillus on agar. I entirely agree 

 with Nuttall, who says : " It does seem high time, though, after 

 nearly a century and a half of discussion, to see what would be 

 the result of properly carried out experiments. That ordinary 

 flies {M. domestica and the like) may carry about and deposit 

 the bacillus of anthrax in their excrements, or cause infection 

 through their soiled exterior coming in contact with wounded 

 surfaces or food, may be accepted as proven in view of the ex- 

 perimental evidence already presented." 



