602 Transactions of the Society. 



XII. — Experiments on Feeding some Insects with the Curved 

 or " Comma " Bacillus, and also with another Bacillus (B. 



' By E. L. Maddox, M.D., Hon. F.R.M.S. 



(Bead 13th May, 1885.) 



The record of a few experiments on feeding insects with the 

 " comma " bacillus, and also with a straight bacillus {B. subtilis ?) 

 may be of some interest, as I am not aware that a similar attempt 

 has been previously made and published. Although these experi- 

 ments are too few to speak positively as to results, they are brought 

 before the Fellows of the Society in the hope that others may be 

 induced to extend them. They are of interest as bearing on the 

 question of a possible mode of contagion, and are deserving of a 

 more methodical inquiry, which as the season advances, I may 

 perhaps be able to follow out. 



On the morning of the 23rd of April a bee and two blowflies 

 were captured and put under a clean tumbler resting in a saucer, a 

 small square of clean glass being also placed in the saucer. Each 

 was then fed off a bit of lump sugar well saturated with a 

 liquefied impure gelatin culture of the " comma " bacillus abound- 

 ing in living specimens of this organism, but contaminated with 

 micrococci. One of the flies appeared to have been somewhat 

 injured in the capture. 



A few minutes afterwards a large wasp and another blowfly 

 were captured, and placed together under the same conditions in 

 another tumbler, and fed in the same way. Each insect was seen 

 to feed freely ofi" the saturated sugar. Provision was duly made 

 for ventilation by supporting the tumblers on strips of card placed 

 in the saucers. On the 24th, 9 a.m., the bee seemed very dull, 

 and one of the flies, the injured one, scarcely able to stand. The 

 bee was now fed with a drop of fresh milk from the breakfast table, 

 of which it partook freely, and about three minutes after it had a 

 violent dejection on the square piece of glass, and then appeared 

 very lively, but for more than twenty minutes it seemed unable to 

 clean itself of the excreta or make itself presentable. Part of the 

 dejection was at once placed on some clean thin covers and allowed 

 to dry without heat ; also examined wet ; some of the curved 

 bacilli were in motion. The wasp was also fed with the milk, and 

 the blowflies partook of the same, but without any similar result. 

 The small lump of sugar in each saucer was again moistened with the 

 culture fluid. Later in the forenoon another hive bee was caught 

 and put under the tumbler with the first one. All were now seen 

 to again feed off the sugar, and the wasp in the interim had had a 



