2 BULLETIN 810, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
sistance of Bacillus pluton to heat, drying, sunlight, fermentation, 
and disinfectants; the effect of the disease on the colony and on the 
apiary; and the transmission, diagnosis, and prognosis of the disease. 
Work directly on the treatment of the disease has not been attempted 
by the writer. Naturally, however, any treatment that is devised, if it 
is to be efficient and at the same time economical, must be based upon 
results obtained from the solution of such problems as those which 
have received attention in these studies. 
Results obtained from a study of the disease in the eee and 
in the experimental apiary form the basis of the discussions contained 
in the present paper. Since the disease encountered in nature is very 
similar to the one produced by artificial inoculation, the importance 
of the studies is at once evident. 
The paper + will be of interest, it is believed, not only to the apiarist 
who may wish to apply the facts here determined in the pursuit of 
his profession, but also to the investigator whose desire primarily is 
a further study of the disease. 
NAME OF THE DISEASE 
The term “ foulbrood ” was quite generally used in the past, as it 
still frequently is, for the two infectious diseases now known in 
America as European foulbrood and American foulbrood. In 1885 
when Cheshire and Cheyne (4) in England made their studies on 
foulbrood and described Bacillus alvei, evidently they were not con- 
vinced that there were two distinct diseases that were being called 
by the one name foulbrood. The disease studied by them is the one 
which is the subject of discussion in the present paper. In the names 
for the two diseases it will be observed that the word “ foulbrood ” is 
retained in both instances. To this “ European” is added for the 
disease on which early laboratory studies were made by these Euro- 
peans (Cheshire and Cheyne). 
Dr. William R. Howard (6), of Texas, in 1900, worked for a brief 
period with this disease, reached the conclusion that it was a new one, 
and referred to it by the names “ New York bee disease,” or “ black 
brood.” Work by Moore and White (11) in 1902 showed that the 
disease was not new, but was the foulbrood studied by Cheshire and 
Cheyne (4). The names “ New York bee disease,” or “ black brood,” 
therefore, were superfiuous, and as their use would have added to the 
confusion that already existed they were discarded. Beekeepers, ento- 
mologists, and ees as a rule, are more or less familiar with 
the terms “ foulbrood ” and “ Bacillus alvei.” Usually, however, the 
ropy foulbrood—American foulbrood—is the one that is thought of, 
1 The present studies are similar to those made by the writer on sacbrood (17), Nosema- 
disease (18), and American foulbrood (19). A reference to these papers may be found 
helpful where the discussions in the present one are especially brief. The investigations 
were completed in September, 1916, and the paper was submitted for publication in 
October, 1918. 
