392 Transactions of the Society. 



manner from the hacterium, or " bacillus " which has occupied the 

 special attention of Mr. Dowdeswell. It differs from the latter not 

 only in its morphology, but in the fact that it is not fatal to 

 fowls. 



I shall refer to these points of difference later, but desire first, 

 as briefly as possible, to record the history of this organism as 

 known to us by experiment. 



In September 1880, while engaged in certain investigations in 

 New Orleans, I injected a little of my own saliva beneath the skin 

 of a rabbit, as a control experiment. To my surprise the animal 

 died, and I found in its blood a multitude of oval micro-organisms, 

 united for the most part in pairs or in chains of three or four 

 elements. Further experiments showed me that the blood con- 

 taining this organism was infectious in the smallest amount, and 

 that its infectious and pathogenic properties were due to the presence 

 of this oval micrococcus ; which, moreover, jJiSduced identical 

 results when isolated in pure cultures. My first' paper giving an 

 account of these experiments was published in April 1881.* I 

 have since repeated the experimental injections with saliva, blood, 

 and pure cultures of the organism, over and over again, and have 

 recorded my results in various published papers, and in ' Bacteria.'f 



Shortly before the publication of my first paper, Pasteur 

 announced to the French Academy of Sciences his discovery of a 

 " new disease " which he had produced in rabbits by injecting sub- 

 cutaneously a little saliva obtained from the mouth of a child who 

 died from hydrophobia in one of the hospitals of Paris. I at once 

 recognized this " new disease " of Pasteur as identical with the in- 

 fectious disease in rabbits, which I had previously induced by the 

 subcutaneous injection of my own saliva. In my book referred to I 

 say, " There can no longer be any doubt that this disease was 

 identical with that which the writer has previously produced by 

 inoculating rabbits with his own saliva ,• and, consequently, that 

 the natural inference of Pasteur that this * new disease ' was due 

 to the fact that the child from whom the material which produced 

 it was obtained, had died of hydrophobia, was an error. Subse- 

 quent experiments by Yulpian and others soon made it plain that 

 a mistake had occurred, and nothing more has been heard from 

 Pasteur concerning his new disease. But the results reported are 

 entirely in accord with the deductions of the writer as to the 

 etiological role of the micrococcus." | 



On another page (869) of the same work I give an account of 

 Koch's experiments, in which he induced fatal septicaemia in 

 rabbits by injecting a putrid infusion of beef beneath their skin. 



* Nat. Board of Health Bull. Washington, ii. (1881) p. 781. Also in 

 Studies from Biological Lab. Johns-Hopkins Univ. Bait., ii. (1882) pp. 183-200. 

 t New York, 1884. % Op. cit., p. 367. 



