156 MICRO-ORGANISMS AND DISEASE. [CHAP. 



through a large number of successive cultures, at a temperature 

 of 35 37 C., gradually loses its pathogenic properties. Of 

 this assertion I have said already a great deal in my Report for 

 1881 1882, and I mention it here merely in connexion with 

 Buchner's other assertions. I have shown, that even assuming 

 that Buchner has had in all his cultures the true bacillus 

 anthracis, but for which there is no definite proof, as Koch 

 has so ably pointed out in his critical review of Buchner's 

 work (Mittheilungen aus dem Jc. Gesundheitsamte, Berlin, 

 1881, Bnd. I.), Buchner, having tested his cultures on white 

 mice only, has fallen into a serious error, for, as I have shown 

 (Reports for 1881 1882), a culture of bacillus anthracis may 

 have become quite harmless to white mice, but be still very 

 virulent to other animals. In fact, therefore, Buchner's result 

 does not require for its achievement more than one culture, 

 provided this has been kept for several days or weeks without 

 spore-formation, as was the case in Buchner's experiments. 



As regards Buchner's statement that by successive cultivation 

 of bacillus anthracis at 35 37 C., this assumes the morpho- 

 logical and physiological characters of hay bacillus, I agree with 

 Koch in regarding this as a complete error. If the cultures are 

 quite safe from contamination nothing of the sort ever happens. 

 I have now for several years carried on such cultures, and have 

 not seen anything of the sort. It is of course clear that if by 

 any accidental contamination, say at the time of inoculating a 

 fresh tube, a motile septic non-pathogenic bacillus, with which, 

 or with the spores of which, the air sometimes abounds, is intro- 

 duced, every new culture established from this one will abound 

 in this bacillus, and as it grows quicker and more easily 

 than the bacillus anthracis, the next cultivations become barren 

 of all the bacillus anthracis, and only the non-pathogenic motile 

 bacillus will be found present. This criticism has been 

 applied by Koch to Buchner's experiments, and I must fully 

 endorse it. 



But there is a much more serious statement of Buchner's 

 serious, because if true in nature, it is dreadful to contem- 

 plate to what amount of anthrax man and brute may become 

 subject viz., that he maintains to have succeeded in trans- 

 forming the hay bacillus into bacillus anthracis, by carrying 

 the former through many generations under ever varying 

 change of soil. It is needless to detail here all these experi- 

 ments of Buchner, since I do not attach any great value to them, 

 and I should not have troubled myself much about them were 

 it not that one meets in mycological literature, particularly on 

 the part of botanists, an acceptance of Buchner's statement 



