FIELD VOLES IN THESSALY. 315 



arvalis, which generally did not die until ten or twelve days after 

 absorbing the bacillus with its food. The body of one of the 

 inoculated voles which was left in the cage was found next 

 morning half-devoured, the brain and liver being eaten away, 

 although the three animals in the cage were plentifully supplied 

 with food. 



We at once commenced our preparations. In accordance 

 with the experiments which I had carried out at Greifswald, the 

 bacilli could be propagated in various inexpensive cultivating 

 fluids. Infusions of oat- and barley-straw had proved very 

 suitable for this cultivation. By adding one per cent, of peptone 

 and one-half per cent, of glucose, or grape-sugar, to this infusion, 

 cultivating fluids were obtained, in which milliards of bacilli 

 could be developed at incubation-temperature in one night, after 

 the addition of a few germs. 



The next thing to be done was to sterilise these cultivating 

 fluids in large quantities. The bacteriological laboratory was 

 excellently fitted up, but did not of course possess apparatus for 

 the preparation of hundreds of litres of cultivating-fluid. I had 

 hoped to find a large steam disinfecting apparatus in Athens in 

 which the sterilisation of large quantities of fluids might have 

 been undertaken. But there was no large apparatus of the kind 

 in the city. The only apparatus suitable for my purpose was in 

 the University Hospital. It was a steam disinfecting apparatus 

 of half a metre broad, and over one metre long, and was heated 

 with coal. This apparatus was at once placed at my disposal in 

 the most obliging manner by the authorities. The straw was 

 boiled in large boilers in the kitchen of the Hospital. The 

 decoction was poured through a sieve, and placed in glass flasks 

 covered with wicker basketwork, to be sterilised in the flasks, the 

 mouths of which were stopped with wadding. But although the 

 flasks were put into a cold oven, and gradually heated, they could 

 not sustain the sterilisation, owing to the very unequal strength 

 of the glass. Two flasks out of three burst. Nor would large 

 glass flasks containing six litres bear the sterilisation. We were 

 consequently obliged to abandon the use of glass. The only 

 material from which large vessels could be quickly and cheaply 

 made, and which would bear the heating, was tin. But before 

 having large vessels made of this material, it was requisite to 

 ascertain whether the germs would multiply in tin. The bacilli 



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