XVIL] SEPTIC AND PATHOGENIC ORGANISMS. 165 



appearance, one to two drops, and diluting them with four to 

 five cc. of distilled water, and using of this diluted fluid one 

 to two drops for inoculating the conjunctiva of healthy rabbits, 

 severe ophthalmia will be the result. Carrying on the culti- 

 vation of these bacilli started from a poisonous infusion, for a 

 second generation in fluid medium, no trace of any poisonous 

 action can be now detected, any quantity of such a cultivation 

 is incapable of producing ophthalmia. Sattler used in his 

 cultivations solid nourishing material, on the surface of which 

 he deposited his drop of poisonous jequirity infusion contain- 

 ing the bacilli ; after some days' incubation, the bacilli having 

 become greatly multiplied, he took out from this second 

 culture a drop, and transferred it to a new culture tube of 

 solid material, and so he went on ; every one of these cultures 

 possessed poisonous action. Clearly it would, since he always 

 used part of the original fluid deposited oh the surface of the 

 solid nourishing material. Part of this (being gelatine) be- 

 came by the growth liquefied, but considering that Sattler 

 started with infusions of considerable concentration he left 

 the seeds for many hours and days in the infusion it is not to 

 be wondered at that this would bear a considerable amount of 

 dilution, and still retain its poisonous properties. From all 

 this we see, then, that the jequirity bacillus per se has nothing 

 to do with the poisonous principle of the jequirity seeds, 

 but that this principle is a chemical ferment in some respects 

 (in its inability to withstand boiling) similar to the pepsin 

 ferment. 1 



(C) The third case, in which an experimental attempt has 

 been made to transform a common septic into a specific or 

 pathogenic micro-organism, is exemplified by the common 

 mould, aspergillus, a mycelial fungus. But since this point 

 has been discussed already in Chapter XV. I need not here 

 enter into it again, suffice it to say that certain species of 

 aspergillus possess the power of making in the rabbit a general 

 mycosis, and this power they possess ab initio ; other kinds of 

 aspergillus do not possess this character and cannot acquire it 

 under any conditions. 



1 Since this has been in print, I became aware that Messrs. Warden and 

 Waddell published in Calcutta during the present year a most valuable memoir, 

 detailing a large number of observations on the jequirity poison, which are in 

 complete harmony with my own observations. They have definitely proved, 

 that the active principle is a proteid abrin closely allied to native albumen ; 

 that its action is similar to that of a soluble ferment, that it can be isolated, 

 and that it is contained, not only in the seeds but also in the root and stem of 

 Abrus precatorius. 



