162 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE BACTERIA. 



In France, Toussaint commenced, March 21, 

 3875, a series of successful inoculations upon rab- 

 bits, with blood obtained from the spleen and an 

 abdominal tumor of a sheep which had died of the 

 mal du rate. These specimens had been sent to 

 Chauveau by Joly, veterinary surgeon at Gien. 

 Having preserved some blood in the air, Tous- 

 saint remarked, as Davaine had done and as Koch 

 had observed, that putrefaction kills the Bacillus ; 

 enclosed in a close vessel, it succumbs as soon as 

 oxygen is wanting, which occurs sooner when the 

 temperature is elevated. 



It was upon the presentation of these results 

 to the Academy of Sciences that Cohn expressed 

 the opinion that charbon is not due to a bacterium, 

 but to a special virus. If the filtered blood does 

 not act, it is because the filter,, at the same time, 

 retains the, virus. 



Pasteur, in his letter of Aug. 18, 1877, replies 

 that a virus would be impotent to resist the numer- 

 ous cultivations endured by the liquids in his ex- 

 periments, and that the bacteria alone remaining, 

 it was very logical to attribute to them the infec- 

 tious power possessed by the liquid of the last 

 cultivation. 



Paul Bert had at first believed, with Cohn, in 

 the existence of a virulent agent other than the 

 bacteria. Indeed, after having treated blood of 

 charbon with compressed air and alcohol, which 

 kill bacteria, he had been able to transmit charbon. 

 But, abandoning this first idea, he expressed him- 

 self as of the same opinion as Pasteur and Joubert 



