?2.] A Pathogenic Schizophyte of the Hog. i 



A PATHOGENIC SCHIZOPHYTE OF THE HOG. 



( Continued from March number.) 

 A LITTLE over a year ago I had a chance to make an inci- 

 •**■ dental investigation of a few cases of Texan fever, and be- 

 sides other bacteria found several large bacilli, several micros in 

 length. These bacilli developed large helobacteria, containing 

 each one or two lasting spores. If the observations of dthers 

 are correct, and I have no doubt they are, these lasting spores, 

 when their time comes, burst, and discharge a cloudy mass, which 

 is supposed to consist of exceedingly minute germs, too small to 

 be distinctly seen with the very best objectives at our disposal. 

 These minute germs, it is further supposed, develop and grow, 

 and finally form the micrococci of the Schizophytes to which the 

 helobacteria and the lasting spores belong. The helobacteria, which 

 I found in swine-plague, bear, as to size, about the same relation 

 to the swine-plague Schizophytes, as the helobacteria found in 

 Texan fever to the bacilli, which presented themselves in that dis- 

 ease ; consequently, as the former were found so often, and fre- 

 quently in perfectly fresh material, before any other Schizophytes 

 except those of swine-plague, and particularly before any putre- 

 faction bacteria had made their appearance, there is, in my judg- 

 ment, just cause to suppose that these helobacteria are but another 

 stage of development of the bispherical swine-plague Schizo- 

 phytes, and that the germs of the swine-plague micrococci are 

 the product of the lasting spores. At any rate, if such is the 

 case, the whole cycle of development and propagation is complete, 

 and a great many things are at once explained which otherwise 

 cannot be accounted for. 



These lasting spores, undoubtedly, like those of some other 

 Schizophytes, possess great vitality ; are able to withstand degrees 

 of heat and cold and other adverse influences absolutely destruc- 

 tive to the Schizophytes in any other form or stage of develop- 

 ment. I have abundant proof— the same has been published in 

 my reports to the Commissioner of Agriculture— that the vitality 

 of the infectious principle of swine-plague, or what is the same, 

 of the Schizophytes of swine-plague, can be preserved under cer- 

 tain conditions, or in certain media — in an old straw stack for 

 instance — a whole year, and possibly much longer. If the swine- 



