ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY^ ETC. 287 



Inoculation of fresh blood produced death in about twenty-four 

 hours. 



On autopsy, the first thing that was noticed was that the veins of 

 the abdomen, in which region inoculation was practised, were much 

 more noticeable than ordinarily. Many of the ganglia were swollen 

 and hgemorrhagic. There was emphysema of the cellular tissue. 

 The lungs gave indications of pulmonary apoplexia, and the trachea 

 was almost always congested. The blood was more or less liquid, 

 and coagulated feebly. The appetite of the inoculated rabbits was 

 bad, and these symptoms began to be marked five or six hours after 

 inoculation. Later on there was a manifest tendency to paralysis. 

 Shortly before death there appeared to be a great flow of saliva. 



The blood of the animals thus treated was found, on examination, 

 to contain a remarkable microscopic organism, of an exceedingly small 

 size. It had the shape of a small rod, a little constricted in the 

 middle, so as to give a figure of 8 appearance, and the diameter of 

 each half was often not more than 0*5 /a in diameter. (Since the rods 

 have been cultivated they have increased in size, and are now nearly 

 twice their original size.) M. Pasteur has convinced himself, by a 

 series of cultivation-experiments, that this minute organism is the 

 real cause of the disease ; while in blood it has the form already 

 described, it has in the cultivation fluid the form of more or less long 

 cliaplets, made up of a variable number of joints, all of which have 

 the figure of 8 form, but which are somewhat larger than those seen 

 in the blood. The guinea-pig exhibits a great resistance to the 

 action of this morbific organism. 



M. Pasteur hopes that, if hydrophobia can be showTi to be due to 

 the presence of a microscopic organism, it may not be beyond the 

 power of science to find some means of diminishing the action of the 

 virus, so as not only to preserve to man his dogs, but to save him from 

 the effects of a disease which is never contracted save from their 

 caresses or their bites. 



Nature of Malaria.* — The most recent discoveries in this subject 

 are summed up by Tommasi-Crudeli thus : — The cause of the malady 

 was determined by Klebs and himself in 1879 to be a distinct species 

 of Bacillus, which was found in the atmosphere and soil of all infected 

 districts ; if introduced into the systems of animals, it produced an 

 intermittent fever and the lesions characteristic of this disease. It is 

 found developing in affected animals, especially in the spleen and 

 medulla of the bones, the parts which are most altered in human 

 patients. 



Marchiafava has found the same species of bacillus in human 

 subjects which have died of the disease, in the lymphatic glands and 

 in the blood of all the veins, in addition to the parts above mentioned ; 

 but subsequent research did not show its presence in the arteries. 

 The same observer has now established that certain stages of the 

 disease correspond to certain states of development of the parasite ; 

 in the feverish stage the organism occurs in the blood only under the 



* Atti R. Accad. Lincei, Transimti, iv. (1881) pp. 19-21. 



X 2 



