POLYMORPHISM OF MICROBES. 281 



that he had produced anthrax. But as he had per- 

 formed numerous experiments on anthrax in the same 

 laboratory, it is probable that his cultures of the meat 

 bacillus were impure, and that he had really inoculated 

 with B. anthracis. The transformation of the bacillus 

 of meat into that of anthrax is therefore not yet 

 proved. 



Jequirity Microbe. This is another instance of an 

 analogous mistake, owing to which the Jequirity 

 bacillus has been supposed to be transformed from a 

 merely septic into a pathogenic microbe. This sub- 

 stance, recently imported from India, is extracted from 

 the seeds of Abrus precatorius, one of the leguminous 

 plants. A few drops of the infusion of these seeds 

 applied to the eye produce conjunctivitis, which is 

 artificially excited in order to effect the disappearance 

 of the granules (trachoma) by which the inner surface 

 of the eyelids is sometimes affected. In India, the 

 same liquid is used to kill cattle by a simple puncture, 

 with the object of skinning them. 



When Sattler noticed that an infusion of jequirity 

 became full of moving bacilli in a few hours, re- 

 sembling bacillus subtilis of an infusion of hay (Fig. 

 80), he made cultures of this bacillus, and produced 

 by their means serious ophthalmia in the eyes of 

 rabbits. At the same time he ascertained that this 

 microbe was harmless when floating in the air, and 

 that its pathogenic properties were only displayed 

 when it was cultivated in an infusion of jequirity. 



