OR, MANUAL, OF THE APIARV. 



477 



There is no longer any doubt as to the cause of this fearful 

 plague. Like the fell "Pebrine," which came so near exter- 

 minating the silk-worm, and a most lucrative and extensive 

 industry in Europe, it, as conclusively shown by Drs. Preusz 

 and Schonfeld, of Germany, is the result of minute parasitic 

 organisms. Schonfeld not only infected healthy bee-larvae, 

 but those of other insects, both by means of the putrescent 

 foul brood and by taking the spores. Professor Cohn discov- 



FiG. 260. 



Healthy Stage. Early Stage. 



Foul Brood — Prom A. 1. Moot Co. 



ered, in 1874, that the cause of foul brood was a microbe, 

 Bacillus alveolaris. Mr, Hilbert, the following year, showed 

 that these micro-organisms existed in the mature bees as well 

 as in the brood. L,ater Mr. Cheshire gave the microbe the 

 name of Bacillus alvei. 



Fungoid growths are very minute, and the spores are so 

 infinitesimally small as often to elude the sharp detection of 

 the expert microscopist. Most of the terrible contagious dis- 

 eases that human flesh is heir to— like typhus, diphtheria, 



