260 AUSTRALASIAN 



ities of form, and approximately to measure the size of these 

 organisms, still they are so minute, that, as calculated by Mr. 

 Cheshire, one thousand millions may be contained in the larva 

 of a bee, and of the spores or seeds, as many as one hundred 

 ' millions in the bee's egg, which is itself only one-fourteenth of 

 an inch in length, and one-seventeenth of an inch in diameter. 



Fig. 118.— BACILLI Fig. 119.— SPORES OF BACILLI 



(greatly magnified). (greatly magnified). 



Having premised so much, it may be stated that Mr. Che- 

 shire has established, as the first result of his investigations, 

 that the fungoids present in cases of foul brood are not micro- 

 cocci, but always bacilli , that they are not the result of the 

 disease generated by the decaying larvae, but the cause of it, 

 generated in the fluids of the bees themselves, and possibly 

 transmitted even by the eggs of an infected queen. He says : 



"Foul brood, then, is a bacillus disease ; and in these days, when 

 the ' germ theory ' is the question of questions amongst pathologists 

 and physiologists, it is extremely interesting for us to note that science 

 has lately shown that different species of bacilli also cause consumption, 

 cholera, typhoid, leprosy, and many other diseases afflicting the human 

 family ; whilst amongst animals glanders, splenic fever, sepitcsemia, 

 etc., arise from a similar cause." 



The particular species found in the hive, and which causes 

 the disease, has been named by Mr. Cheshire and the late 

 lamented secretary of the British Bee-keepers' Association, 

 bacillus alvei, by which name the disease is now more correctly 

 designated than by its old one. 



BACILLUS ALVEI UNDER THE MICROSCOPE. 



Mr. Cheshire's description (illustrated) of the disease, as 

 seen by him under a very powerful microscope, is very inter- 

 esting ; he says : 



" Taking a small quantity of the juices of a healthy grub, and spread- 

 ing it out under a thin glass under the microscope, one is presented 



