XV] ANAEROBIC BACILLI 395 



and chest, and even of the neck, are found deeply con- 

 gested, separated from the skin by accumulations of gas, 

 and the tissues infiltrated with copious sanguineous mal- 

 odorous exudation. This, under the microscope, is densely 

 filled with rod-shaped or cylindrical bacilli, few of these 

 motile, most of them without motility. While the local 

 appearances produced in the animal by our cultures bear a 

 considerable general resemblance to those produced by 

 injection of Koch's bacillus of malignant oedema, which, as 

 is well known, is also an anaerobic microbe, there exist 

 marked differences between the two ; in malignant oedema 

 the sanguineous exudation contains, besides cylindrical 

 bacilli, numerous characteristic, thread-like bacilli, in our 

 cases these threads are quite absent, besides, the bacilli of 

 malignant oedema are generally longer than those in our 

 case ; in malignant oedema most of the bacilli are actively 

 motile, in our cases very few are motile, and these only 

 feebly so. A further difference is brought out by the 

 examination of microscopic specimens, both of the cultures 

 and of the subcutaneous exudation, in which the bacilli 

 have been submitted to the process of staining after Gram. 

 While the bacillus of malignant oedema after staining with 

 the dye is decolourised by Gram, our bacillus retains the dye 

 well. The bacillus of malignant oedema does not cause the 

 rapid curdling of milk, as our bacillus does. 



Another noteworthy difference between the two microbes 

 is the rapidity of liquefaction of sugar gelatine in anaerobic 

 cultures : although the colonies in sugar gelatine look ahke 

 for both these microbes, our bacillus liquefies the gelatine 

 conspicuously faster than the bacillus of malignant oedema, 

 and the gelatine hquefied by the former is less turbid than 

 that by the latter. Also, in respect of flagella, a marked 

 difference is noticed between the two microbes. The 



