POLYMORPHISM OF MICROBES. 281 
that he had produced anthrax. But as he had per- 
formed numerous experiments on anthrax in the same 
laboratory, it is probable that his cultures of the meat 
bacillus were impure, and that he had really inoculated 
with B. anthracis. The transformation of the bacillus 
of meat into that of anthrax is therefore not yet 
proved. 
Jequirity Microbe.—This is another instance of an 
analogous mistake, owing to which the Jequirity 
bacillus has been supposed to be transformed from a 
merely septic into a pathogenic microbe. This sub- 
stance, recently imported from India, is extracted from 
the seeds of Abrus precatorius, one of the leguminous 
plants, A few drops of the infusion of these seeds 
applied to the eye produce conjunctivitis, which is 
artificially excited in order to effect the disappearance 
of the granules (trachoma) by which the inner surface 
of the eyelids is sometimes affected. In India, the 
same liquid is used to kill cattle by a simple puncture, 
with the object of skinning them. 
When Sattler noticed that an infusion of jequirity 
became full of moving bacilli in a few hours, re- 
sembling bacillus subtilis of an infusion of hay (Fig. 
80), he made cultures of this bacillus, and produced 
by their means serious ophthalmia in the eyes of 
rabbits, At the same time he ascertained that this 
microbe was harmless when floating in the air, and 
that its pathogenic properties were only displayed 
when it was cultivated in an infusion of jequirity. 
