ANTHRAX. 135 



discernible under the microscope. A drop from the 

 first flask produced the same effect in a second, and 

 from that to a third, and so on. By this means the 

 organism was completely freed from all which was 

 foreign to it in the original blood, since it is calculated 

 that after from eight to ten of such processes, the 

 drop of blood was diluted in a volume of liquid 

 greater than the volume of the earth. Yet the tenth, 

 twentieth, and even the fiftieth infusion would, when 

 a drop was inserted under the skin of a sheep, procure 

 its death by splenic fever, with the same symptoms 

 as those produced by the original drop of blood. The 

 bacillus is, therefore, the sole cause of the disease. 



These cultures have often since been repeated by 

 numerous observers, so that the microbe has been 

 studied in all its forms, and the extent of its poly- 

 morphism has been ascertained. At the end of two 

 days the bacterium, which, while still in the blood, 

 is of a short, abrupt form, displays excessively long 

 filaments, which are sometimes rolled up like a coil 

 of string. In about a week many of the filaments 

 contain refracting, somewhat elongated nuclei. These 

 nuclei presently f6rm chaplets, in consequence of the 

 rupture of the cell- wall of the rod which gave birth 

 to them ; others, again, float in the liquid in the form 

 of isolated globules. These nuclei are the spores or 

 germs of the microbes, which germinate when placed 

 in the infusion, become elongated, and reproduce fresh 

 bacilli. 



