A 
Die Parasiten der Infectionskrankheiten. 3 
which are produced by fission, so that evidently we have under 
our eye an alteration of the elements, which are in a fair way of 
multiplication.‘ 
This spore cell production I had altogether overlooked; but 
now the question arises: May not this be the same microphyte 
as you have so admirably shown in the blood of Texas fever *), 
or, what would probably amount to much the same thing, a fun- 
gus, which demands much the same condition of blood for its de- 
velopment? The want of any testimony to its presence in the 
bile, and the ingorance concerning the special action of the bile 
in breaking up the blood globules, affords no presumptive evidence 
of the non-existence of these conditions, since the presumption is 
that no test was applied. 
In contagious properties, again, they agree in some remar- 
kable pomts. The carbuncular fevers are inoculable, and usually 
contagious, but the contagium is rarely or never conveyed through 
any other medium than the blood, tissues and discharges of the 
diseased animals — rarely showing what the French call a virus vo- 
latil — and evidently requiring some, not well defined conditions, 
for its transmission; hence, in many cases — indeed, the majority of 
cases in Great-Britain — it gives no evidence of a contagium un- 
less inoculation is resorted to. 
(Signed) With much esteem, 
Yours very faithfully 
James Law. 
Herr Prof. Harris fügt hinzu: 
Plainly enough, it will be easy tor European medical observers 
of Milzbrand, and the whole group of anthracoid diseases of cattle, 
to ascertain whether these destructive maladies which they witness 
are or are not similar to the Texas Cattle Disease. Prof. Vir- 
chow of Berlin, Dr. William Budd of Bristol and the ablest 
pathologists in Europe, think they are able to trace a direct re- 
*) Es ist leicht einzusehen, dass eine gewisse Aehnlichkeit der Organis- 
men, welche bei verschiedenen Krankheiten auftreten, durchaus nicht auf ihre 
specifische Natur einen Schluss erlaubt, dass also Aehnlichkeit der Form hier 
nicht identität der Arten bedeutet. Daher ist auch der obige Einwurf des 
Herrn James Law, dass die Milzbrand-Bacterien auch bei Influenza und 
anderen Krankheiten vorkommen, ganz unzutreffend. Soll dieser Einwurf eine 
Bedeutung haben, so ist erst die specifische Identität der verschiedenen ,,Ba- 
cterieu“ nachzuweisen. 
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