310 ANTHRAX. 



the subject were carried out by Sidney Martin. This 

 observer used alkali-albumin on which to grow the bacillus, 

 this medium approaching most closely to the environ- 

 ment of the latter when growing in the animal body. 

 From cultures in this medium, concentrated by evapora- 

 tion either at 100 C. or in vacuo at 35 to 45 C., 

 there were isolated proto-albumose, deutero - albumose, 

 and traces of peptone. The albumoses differed from 

 those which occur in ordinary digestion, in being strongly 

 alkaline in their reaction. This alkalinity, Martin held, 

 was due to traces of an alkaloidal body of which the 

 albumoses were the precursors, and which were formed 

 when the process of digestion of the alkali - albumin by 

 the bacillus was allowed to go on further. By the albu- 

 moses and the alkaloid pathogenic effects were pro- 

 duced in animals, closely similar to those produced by 

 the bacilli themselves. Martin adduced evidence to show 

 that, of the symptoms of the disease, the fever was mostly 

 due to the albumoses, while the oedema and congestion 

 were mostly due to the alkaloid which acted as a local 

 irritant. He showed that prolonged boiling destroyed the 

 activity of the albumoses, but not that of the alkaloid. 

 Further, from the body fluids of animals dead of anthrax 

 he isolated poisonous bodies identical with those produced 

 by the bacilli growing in this artificial medium. Hankin, 

 in a later research with Wesbrook, arrived at the conclusion 

 that the bacillus anthracis produces a ferment which, dif- 

 fusing out into the culture fluid, elaborates albumoses from 

 the proteids present in it. The bacilli also produce 

 albumoses directly without the intervention of a ferment. 

 The albumoses produced in the latter way, when injected 

 in small doses, cause in susceptible animals immunity 

 against subsequent inoculation with virulent bacilli, but are 

 only toxic to animals not very susceptible to the disease. 

 Marmier, after cultivating the B. anthracis in peptone solu- 

 tion containing certain salts, removed all the albumoses 

 from the resultant liquid, and from them, either by dialysis 

 or extraction with glycerine, isolated a body which gave no 



