FIELD VOLES IN THESSALY. 3&3 



for the piece of land on which he worked in a wicker basket. 

 One after another went to the pot, and poured the contents of 

 his basket into the fluid. The pieces of bread were then dipped 

 down, and after they had been sufficiently soaked, were taken 

 out of the pot with the hands, and put back into the basket. 

 In order to relieve the peasants of the doubts which they ex- 

 pressed whether the prepared bread might not be poisonous to 

 their sheep, the animals belonging to the establishment, — fowls, 

 pigeons, dogs, pigs, horses, donkeys, sheep, and goats, — were all 

 fed before their eyes with prepared pieces of bread; indeed, 

 some of the staff who divided the bread among the peasants ate 

 pieces themselves in their presence, to show that it was harmless 

 also to man. It is true I had made no previous experiments upon 

 man, with the bacillus, but only expressed my opinion that I 

 considered it improbable that any harm could result from the 

 bacillus. But this declaration was quite sufficient to induce my 

 companions, who were most zealous for the success of the under- 

 taking, to try the experiment for themselves of eating some of 

 the bread without more ado, in order to tranquillise the peasants. 

 In short, all of us who had to dose the bread, as well as the 

 peasants who had to divide it, served as objects of experiment; for 

 disinfecting our hands, and the baskets used to carry the bread 

 was, of course, out of the question. 



All these experiments on men and animals proved (as I had 

 expected from the result of my former trials) that, so far as they 

 are concerned, the bacillus is wholly innocuous ; it is operative 

 only on the alimentary system of the House Mouse and Field Vole. 

 After the peasants had been taught and shown what was to be 

 done, they went as they were ordered to their fields, accompanied 

 by soldiers, and carried out their instructions faithfully. We 

 ourselves selected suitable posts for observation in different 

 places, and applied the method there, in both the cultivated and 

 fallow-fields. In this manner we succeeded, in a few days, in 

 disseminating the prepared bread over the whole plain, north, 

 east, and west of Larissa. At different places dozens of voles 

 were innoculated with the pure culture by subcutaneous injection, 

 and were liberated in the fields that they might spread the disease 

 in the way already explained. 



I cannot sufficiently express my grateful recognition of the 

 hospitable reception which we received everywhere from the 



