BRIEF HISTORY OF BACTERIOLOGY. 



of Yersin, during an epidemic of bubonic 

 plagne in Hongkong in 1893-4, discovered the 

 same germ and the result of their researches 

 was proclaimed to the world almost simultan- 

 eously. 



In 1897, the discovery of the bacillus of yel- 

 low fever was reported by Sanarelli, a circuit 

 Spaniard. This germ was not accepted be- ^°^ . 

 cause it failed to comply with certain requisite 

 scientific tests. (Koch's circuit, spoken of irn 

 chapter IV, was not proven.) The same is 

 said of the germ found in carcinomatous speci- 

 mens, and of the germ of small-pox reported 

 by Dr. William T. Councilman, of Harvard 

 College, in the spring of 1904. 



It is now definitely known that the *spiroch- 

 etae pallidae, discovered by Hoffman and 



* For years Professor Paul Ehrlich, of the Royal 

 Prussian' Institute, has been experimenting with various 

 drugs in order to discover something which shall have 

 the power to destroy the parasitic spirochetes within 

 man and th* lower animals without injuring the organic 

 cells of the body. Recently it has been the good fortune 

 of EhrUch to discover a drug, or combinationi of drugs, 

 which authorities believe pos'ses'ses the power to destroy 

 the parasite, spirochetae pallidae, the germ of syphilis. 

 This drug is known; as arsenobenzol, or ''606." Ehrlich 

 discovered while pursiting his investigations that the 

 attempt to destroy animal parasites by small doses of 

 an injurious drug was unsafe^ owing to the fact that the 

 parasites frequenitly develop a toleration for the drug 



* See Supplement, page 162. 



21 



