PART III.] Observations giving Support to Davaine and Pasteur s Views. 571 



no way affected. He therefore concluded that the active principle of septicaemia was 

 not regenerated in the animal economy as in the case of charbon, the latter in 

 fact being a virus and the former a poison* 



In the following number of the Comptes Rendus (p. 429), MM. Davaine and 

 Eaimbert announce that they had demonstrated the existence of bacteridia in a 

 man affected with pustule maligne, the excised pustule having contained a great 

 number.f Portions of this pustule-tissue having been introduced beneath the skin 

 of some animals, the latter succumbed, and after their death their blood was found 

 to contain a considerable number of bacteridia. 



Such, in a few words, were the observations which drew the special attention of 

 pathologists to this question, and gave marked impetus to the doctrine of disease 

 germs. Since this time very many observations have been recorded, but those of 

 the past two or three years have been particularly valuable from the circumstance 

 that distinct parts of the subject have been taken up by observers peculiarly 

 qualified to deal with the different phases of the extremely complex phenomena 

 which come under notice. In the first instance, notice will be taken of the 

 principal observations which are considered to give support to MM. Davaine and 

 Pasteur's views. 



In 1875 Professor Ferdinand Cohn published the result of his examinations of 

 these organisms, and having pronounced them to be bacilli, 

 suggested that they should bear the name Bacillus anthracis.l 

 This term has been generally adopted in Germany and England, 

 as, notwithstanding the theory implied in both words, it is 

 convenient to have some such brief designation. Cohn's 

 figure of this bacillus is reproduced (Fig. 38), as a graphic 

 representation from the hand of so accomplished a mycologist 

 is of special value, and will serve to aid in forming an estimate 



*^ Fig. 38. — Bacillun anthraeis, 



of the relation of these organisms to others found under other, obtained, after death, in the 



though somewhat similar, conditions. blood of an ox which had 



died of splenic disease. 

 (After Cohn.) x 600 diam. 

 In 1876 an important contribution to our knowledge of 



these organisms was published by Dr. Koch of Wollstein (Posen), who had had excellent 



opportunities of studying the disease. § Koch had observed that several of the statements 



and conclusions of M. Davaine had been called in question. Some observers had been 



* Loc. cit., p. .896. As will subsequently be seen, some of these conclusions are no longer tenable. 



t Dr. Crisp writes: "As I described in my work on the spleen (1852), dogs, cats, ferrets and pigs, 

 that ate the flesh of these animals, died in a short time, and men that flayed the oxen were affected. In 

 1832 M. Barthelemy inoculated sheep from the blood of sheep that died of splenic apoplexy, and the inoculated 

 animals died in from thirty-six to sixty hours." — A footnote to the Kemarks made regarding the " Germ 

 Theory" at the Pathological Society, 24th April, 1875. 



% Cohn's Beitrage zur Biologic der Pfanten, Band I, Heft 3, 1875. 



§ Cohn's Beitrage, Band II, Heft 2. 



