xix.] PATHOGENIC ORGANISMS. 181 



in the lymph-glands, lungs, spleen, and liver contains the 

 bacilli ; in both instances crops of the bacilli are produced in 

 the afflicted body, and every particle of the tissue containing 

 the bacilli is capable of starting the disease when introduced 

 into a fresh subject. Moreover the artificial cultures of the 

 pure bacilli are possessed of the same pathogenic powei. 

 The same holds good for leprosy, for erisypelas, for swine- 

 plague, &c. So that the proposition that the organisms are 

 intimately connected with the virus must be considered as well 

 established. 



But even after this it remains an open question whether the 

 organism is identical with the virus, or whether the organism 

 is concerned in elaborating the virus a sort of ferment ; and 

 further, whether the virus being the latter's product, is obtain- 

 able apart from the organism. 



Let us start with the proposition that the virus is a product 

 of the organism, a sort of non-organised ferment, but not the 

 organism itself, although this latter is essential for the creation 

 of the latter. 



Inoculating a few bacilli anthracis into the subcutaneous 

 tissue of a suitable animal, e.g. a guinea-pig, we find after, 

 twelve to twenty-four hours the first indications of illness, 

 consisting in a local swelling and a general rise of the body- 

 temperature. At this time there are present in the local 

 swelling bacilli, but only in small numbers ; in the blood the 

 bacilli are very scarce indeed, so scarce that it is difficult to 

 meet with one bacillus in an appreciable quantity of blood.' 

 By this time then the bacilli could not have produced the 

 change by their "numbers" alone. Immediately before 

 death, sometimes some hours, we find in most instances 

 the blood teeming with the bacilli, but this is by no means 

 in all cases ; I have seen a considerable number of deaths 

 from typical anthrax in the mouse, guinea-pig, rabbit, and 

 sheep, occurring from forty-eight to sixty hours after inocula- 

 tion, in which tlie number of bacilli of the blood and tissues 

 was extremely small ; they were present, but only here and 

 there was there one to be found. That the bacilli are present 

 some hours before death in the shape of spores, as has been 

 maintained by Archangelski, I have disproved in a former 

 chapter. In those cases in which the bacilli are scarce even 

 in articulo mortis and immediately after death, the scarcity is 

 not due to the bacilli having already degenerated, since the 

 degenerating bacilli are not noticeable in any way in these 

 instances. It remains then to assume that death occurs in 

 these cases not owing to the presence of the bacilli in numbers ; 



