i 
1170 General Notes. [November | 
the dust of the excreta of diseased individuals, or an infusion of 
that dust; by exposing healthy worms to mere association with 
those suffering from /a flacherie, and by simply moistening the food 
of perfectly healthy examples with an infusion of mulberry leaves 
which had begun to ferment. In this fermenting fluid appeared 
immense numbers of bacteria—evidently chiefly Micrococcus and 
Bacterium, as those genera are now. understood—and after infec- 
tion of their food the silk-worms contained these same bacteria in 
swarms, at first in the alimentary canal, where they set up a fer- 
ment of its contents, and later without the intestinal wall, causing 
a rapid decay of the tissues, accompanied by a conspicuous black- 
ening of the skin. This invasion of the blood was usually post 
elsewhere at this period ; that the numbers of the Micrococcus 
increased rapidly when the bugs were closely confined p 
food, the bodies of starved specimens being alive with them; f 
that the same Bacterium occurred in myriads upon the su sk 
cornstalks which had been punctured by the bugs, evidently w 
tiplied freely in the fermenting process of the plant. and veg- : 
found that it could be readily cultivated in both animal ae 
etable infusions infected from the fluids of the bugs ; that it that a 
its vitality in a dried condition for several months, ane ed 
multiplied rapidly in the blood of caterpillars when Imt iess 
by puncture with a fine needle, causing a torpid and he <a 
condition. He had, further, lately observed among eee 
atana ministrą a fatal, and seemingly contagious, © by the 
tremely similar to sch/affsucht, and characterized, like that, ae 
excessive development of a Micrococcus in the intestines Micro 
the blood,—in both before death. He had cultivated this pe 
coccus without difficulty in both animal and vegetabin 1 disease 
and had begun experiments to determine whether tae 4 iese 
could be conveyed to healthy caterpillars by the use 
of thet 
infected infusions. Se 
Mr. Riley referred briefly to the similar endeavors by Pid | 
peans to utilize these disease germs against injurious in "tific i 
regarded Professor Forbes’s experiments of great go rest 
portance, but doubted whether, for many reasons, == : 
would prove of practical value to the farmer. 
