160 MICRO-ORGANISMS AND DISEASE. [CHAP. 



free of spores of bacillus anthracis : but, seeing that his 

 anthrax cultures were probably contaminated with hay bacillus, 

 I do not see why, by some chance, one of his tubes which he 

 thought he inoculated with hay bacillus should not have been 

 accidentally contaminated with the spores of bacillus anthracis, 

 of which there must have been many about in the air of the 

 laboratory. 



If Buchner could show us that in a laboratory, in which for 

 some considerable time anthrax cultures, anthrax animals, and 

 examinations of anthrax bacilli had not been carried on, 

 cultivation of hay bacillus ultimately yields a fluid which 

 produces typical anthrax, then I should be perhaps prepared 

 to concede his proposition of a transmutation of hay bacillus 

 into bacillus anthracis. Such a proposition is of the widest 

 importance, and therefore its proof ought to be beyond cavil, 

 there ought to be no chance of a possibility of error. Such 

 proof Buchner has not given, and I cannot therefore accept 

 his interpretation. 



(.B) The second instance in which the transformation of a 

 common septic into a specific or pathogenic organism has been 

 experimentally achieved, or I should rather say has been 

 stated to have been achieved, is the jequirity bacillus. In 

 1882 the well-known ophthalmologist M. L, de Wecker in 

 Paris drew attention to the therapeutic value of the seeds or 

 beans of A brus precatorius, a leguminosa common in India 

 and South America. The people of Brazil use it under the 

 name jequirity as a means to cure trachoma or granular lids. 

 De Wecker after many experiments found that a few drops of 

 an infusion made of these seeds causes severe conjunctivitis, 

 in the course of which, no doubt, trachoma is brought to dis- 

 appearance and cure, and it is accordingly on the Continent 

 and in this country now used for this therapeutic object. [I 

 am informed by my friend Dr. T. Lewis, formerly of India, 

 now pathologist at the Netley Army Medical School, that the 

 people in some parts of India know the poisonous properties 

 of these seeds, and use it for inoculating with them subcu- 

 taneously, cattle ; in consequence a severe inflammation is set 

 up, and the animals die of some sort of septicaemia. This is 

 done for the sake of simply obtaining the hides of the 

 beasts.] 



Sattler, in a very important and extensive research (Wiener 

 medic. Wochensckrift, N. 17-21, 1883, and Klin. MonatsU.f. 

 Augenheilk, June 1883) ascertained that when an infusion of 

 the jequirity seeds is made of the strength of about half per 



