1 882.] A Pathogenic Schhophyte of the Hog, 295 



through the best lenses in use, must have been contained in the 

 lung-exudation, and must have passed through the filtering 

 papers. Still, when the filtrate containing the micrococci, was 

 filtrated again and again, each time through four papers, and at 

 such a time, at which most or nearly all of the micrococci had 

 become double, or developed to chains, but before any helobac- 

 teria had formed or could be found, the filtrate finally became 

 free from micrococci, and an inoculation with the same proved to 

 be ineffective, while an inoculation with the filtrate containing 

 micrococci, produced a mild form of disease. Hence, it must be 

 supposed, time and repeated filtrations finally exhausted the exist- 

 ing supply of micrococcus-germs or lasting spore products. 

 Some French investigators, indeed, have found that in Anthrax 

 not only the bacilli, but also their products (?), if used for inocu- 

 lation, produce the disease. Does it not seem probable that these 

 products are nothing but the germs discharged by the lasting 

 spores, which are contained in the infectious media, invisible to 

 the human eye even through the best objectives, because too 

 small ? 



Finally, as single micrococci do not develop from other single 

 micrococci, and are not a product of fission, they cannot increase 

 in numbers in the animal organism — for instance, after an inocu- 

 lation — unless we accept spontaneous generation, or unless there 

 is another link in the cycle of metamorphosis, a helobacterium or 

 lasting spore, which produces and disseminates the germs or 

 seeds of the new micrococci. Therefore, as such helobacteria or 

 lasting spores are of frequent occurrence, and can very often be 

 found in perfectly fresh material, such as lung-exudation, blood 

 serum, etc., before any other bacteria besides swine-plague Schiz- 

 ophytes have made their appearance, and also correspond in size 

 to the swine-plague Schizophytes the same as the helobacteria 

 found in Texan fever to the bacilli found in that disease, it will be 

 pretty safe to conclude that the helobacteria in question are sim- 

 ply an advanced and matured form of the swine-plague Schizo- 

 phytes. The discharged contents of such a lasting spore, though 

 undoubtedly granular, are too fine to be resolved by our present 

 objectives. 



But what proof is there that these Schizophytes, which I call 

 swine-plague Schizophytes, really constitute the cause and the 

 infectious principle of that disease, and are not the products of 



