146 MICROBES, FERMENTS, AND MOULDS. 



to twenty-five days, but the animal was afterwards 

 safe from further attacks of the disease. 



Cattle plague, or contagious typhus, is likewise 

 ascribed to the presence of a microbe with which we 

 are as yet imperfectly acquainted. 



Experimental septicemia is entitled to special men- 

 tion, since it has too often been confounded with 

 anthrax, and has been unskilfully produced with the 

 intention of vaccinating animals in accordance with 

 Pasteur's process. This occurs when too long an 

 interval (twenty -four hours) elapses after the death of 



Fig. 71. -Septic vibrio, bacillus of malignant oedema (Koch) : a, taken from spleen of 

 guinea-pig; b, from a mouse's lung. 



an animal, before taking from it the blood intended for 

 vaccine cultures. After this date the blood no longer 

 contains Bacillus anthracis, which is succeeded by 

 another microbe termed Vibrio septicus, differing 

 widely from the anthrax microbe in form, habit, and 

 character (Fig. 71). Bacillus anthracis is straight and 

 immobile, while the septic vibrio is sinuous, curled, 

 and mobile. Moreover, it is anaerobic, and does not 

 survive contact with the air, but it thrives in a vacuum 

 or in carbonic acid. Since Bacillus anthracis is, on 



