ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICEOSCOPY, ETC, 239 



had been vaccinated showed no sign of ill-health. The method of 

 vaccination is thus proved to be as efficacious against virus produced 

 naturally as against that produced by artificial means. 



Duration of Immunity from Anthrax.* — H. Toussaint bears 

 testimony to the finality of M. Pasteur's recent investigations on this 

 subject. He draws attention to one or two minor points yet unsolved, 

 viz. the duration of the immunity against the disease, and the poiver 

 of inheriting this immunity which is possessed by animals. The 

 duration is said to vary directly with the severity of the first attack, 

 and inversely with the resistance of the animal to the disease ; for 

 certain lambs and ewes which had suffered severely from the effects 

 of a first inoculation had preserved their immunity up to the time of 

 writing (12 months), and the ewes had transmitted it to their off- 

 spring ; while of certain 20-month lambs and old ewes which were 

 first vaccinated with a weaker virus than in the preceding case, and 

 which had resisted an inoculation made a month later, some of the 

 ewes were overcome by the effects of a third inoculation made four 

 months later, while the 20-month lambs survived. The fact of in- 

 heritance of the immunity is shown by the absence of any evil results 

 of inoculation of lambs of one month which were born of vaccinated 

 ewes ; this is a genuine case of inheritance, which cannot be said 

 with equal truth of lambs born of parents inoculated during gestation, 

 for in this case the lamb in utero forms practically part of its parent. 



New Method of Vaccination for Fowl-cholera.f — H. Toussaint 

 supplements M. Pasteur's researches in this subject by experiments 

 showing new methods of mitigating the virulence of the poison, 

 and confirming his own previous opinion as to the identity of septi- 

 caemia and fowl-cholera. In one case rabbits inoculated with blood 

 infected with anthrax died in 7 or 8 hours of septicaemia, pigeons died 

 from its effects in from 1 to 4 or 5 days, fowls inoculated from the 

 pigeons also in from 1 to 4 or 5 days. The bacterium of the disease 

 exactly resembles that of fowl-cholera, and all the symptoms and 

 lesions are precisely similar with both the diseases. In another set of 

 experiments, consisting in inoculating fowls directly with blood from 

 rabbits which had died of septicaemia, the fowls were not killed, but 

 proved to have undergone a vaccinating action, being afterwards proof 

 against both fowl-cholera and septicaemia. To secure this result it is 

 only necessary to vaccinate at the end of the wing. M. Toussaint is 

 inclined to explain the fowl-cholera as produced by certain bacteria 

 whose development is favoured by the presence of putrefying organic 

 matter. 



Rabies.:}: — This obscure subject has been now approached by the 

 famous experimenter on germ-diseases, L. Pasteui', in conjunction 

 with Messrs. Chamberland, Koux, and Thuillier. The view long 

 supported by Dr. Duboue, that the central nervous system, and above 

 all the medulla oblongata connecting the spinal cord with the cere- 



* Comptes Rendus, xciii. (1881) pp. 163-4. 



t Ibid., pp. 219-21. 



X Ibid., xcii. (1881) pp. 1259-60. 



