560 BACTERIOLOGY. 
malaria. Occurring as it does at the same season of 
the year—viz., from June to October—and being con- 
nected apparently, like malaria, in some way with the 
condition of the soil, there is a certain analogy between 
these two diseases. Anthrax is found to occur mostly 
in low, swampy localities, where the soil is covered with 
decaying vegetable matter, and subject to overflows and 
-freshets. There is no doubt that this bacillus is able to 
lead a saprophytic existence for some time, under favor- 
able conditions, in the superficial layers of the soil, re- 
maining latent in the form of spores and retaining its 
vitality; but why an epidemic of anthrax occurs one 
year at a certain place and at the same place the next 
year does not, it is not easy to explain. Pasteur believes 
that the earth-worm plays an important part in bringing 
to the surface and distributing the spores which have 
. been propagated in the buried carcass of an infected ani- 
mal; but Koch has shown that this hypothesis is both 
improbable and superfluous. Apart from the fact that 
sporulation does not normally take place inside the bodies 
of dead animals, the earth-worm is ill adapted for the 
transportation of anthrax spores, which are unfavorably 
affected in their intestines. Out of seventy-two earth- 
worms examined by Ballinger froma notoriously infected 
locality, only one contained anthrax spores. Further- 
more, the soil in places where such carcasses lie buried 
is already saturated with the fluids and other products 
of decomposition of the body of the dead animal contain- 
ing bacilli, which under suitable temperature conditions 
may form spores and thus infect the surface of the land; 
though it is possible that the earth-worm, in some in- 
stances, may contribute to the distribution of spores to 
a certain extent. It would, therefore, seem that the only 
