PART III.l 



Cohns Figure of the Hay-Bacillus. 



587 



is wholly distinct from all others ; that is, if the organism happens to be anything 

 more definite than a granule or molecule. The diseases which have been specially 

 cited in the previous pages as being associated with microphytes may be divided, 

 roughly, into two classes according to the form of the attendant microphyte — the 

 septinous group, consisting of malignant pustule, septicaemia, and the malignant 

 erysipelas or " typhoid " of the pig on the one hand ; and a low form of fever com- 

 monly known as Typhus recurrent, Bilious remittent, Relapsing Fever, etc., on the 

 other. 



With reference to the organisms which have been found associated with the first- 

 named group, taking Malignant Pustule as the type, it is to be observed that M. Eobin,* 

 in 1865, pronounced the bacteridia of Davaine to be identical with Leptothrix buccalis ; 

 and the well-known botanist, Hoffmann, has stated his opinion that they do not differ 

 from like bodies which appear in milk and in meat solutions.f Ferdinand Cohn,| 

 again, in his observations as to the growth of bodies of the same character in hay 

 solutions, declares that the bacilli in the latter are identical in form and size with 



Fig. 49. — Baeillux mhtilis : formed on the surface of a boiled infusion of hay which had stood 24 to 



48 hours. (After Cohn.) x 650 diam. 



those found in splenic disease, and that the various stages in their development corre- 

 spond in every particular — the only difference which distinguished them being that, 

 whereas Bacillus anthracis presented no movements, the bacillus of hay solutions did. 

 This distinction, as has already been stated, has disappeared. Cohn's figure of the 

 hay-bacillus is reproduced (Fig. 49), as it may, in the absence of the original paper, 

 prove useful to such as would wish to get a clear conception of what Bacillus anthracis 

 itself is like by examining so easily obtainable a substance as a little of the scum which 

 forms on the surface of an infusion of hay. 



P.— The Vegetable Organisms found in Healthy Blood after death considered in 

 relation to the Bacteria and Bacilli of Diseases. 



Several years ago Dr. Cunningham and myself were, whilst conducting various ob- 

 servations together, frequently struck with the rapidity with which organisms appeared 



* Traite du Microscope, 1871, page 926. 

 t Birch-Hirschfeld, loc. cit., page, 206. 

 X Cohn's Beitrdge, Band II, Heft 3, 1877. 



