306 APPLIED BACTERlOLOaY 



now will only produce a slight illness. It is a motile 

 bacillus, is sporeless, multiplies rapidly in bouillon with 

 the formation of air-bubbles, and forms air-bubbles in stab- 

 cultures of gelatine. It is destroyed at a temperature of 

 57° even when only exposed for a quarter of an hour. 



By inoculation or intravenous injection in the calf it 

 produces the characteristic symptoms of rinderpest, and in 

 natural rinderpest the same microbe can be isolated, and 

 will, when inoculated or injected, reproduce the disease in 

 calves. Some progress has been made in the preparation 

 of a vaccine and of an antitoxin, though the experiments 

 are not sufficiently numerous or advanced to be more than 

 encouraging. 



In 1871, when the Indian Cattle Plague Commission in- 

 vestigated this disease, and came to the conclusion that it 

 was the same disease as that which had caused so much 

 destruction in cattle in England in 1866, the question of 

 protecting animals by inoculating them with the crude 

 virus, that is, with the fluids taken from a sick animal, was 

 discussed, so also was the amount of protection produced 

 by ordinary vaccination with vaccine fymph : both of these 

 processes had been tried extensively in Russia and Austria, 

 but not with very satisfactory results. 



In inoculating with the crude virus, it was found that, 

 though in many cases a mild disease was caused, very fre- 

 quently a virulent type was produced, and that there was 

 no real control over the disease. In the case of vaccinating 

 with ordinary vaccine lymph, because of the view that 

 rinderpest is allied to small-pox in man, the evidence as to 

 protective effect was too conflicting to justify any practical 

 action. With the microbe, however, now in our hands, I 

 consider it to be merely a matter of time to prepare a 

 vaccine which shall not only be protective, but which shall 

 give us control over the disease. 



