34 MEETING OF [N8FECTOBS OF APIARIES. 



They grow extremely slowly in coagulated blood serum, though kepi al thi 

 body temperature, and there form very long filaments with comparatively few 

 spores. 



In meat infusion kept .-it the temperature of the body they grow readily. 

 causing muddiness, and after a few days a slighl but not tenacious scum. The 

 same peculiar odor is also developed here, more especially if the infusion con- 

 tains a considerable amount of peptone. I do not think that there is any change 

 in the reaction of the fluid; I generally make the infusions faintly alkaline, 

 and after the growth of this organism in it it is faintly alkaline. 



These characteristics show that this is a new bacillus, and one which, so far 

 as my knowledge and experience goes, is only found in foul brood. The constant 

 presence in large numbers of a characteristic organism in a disease and its 

 absence elsewhere must, according to our accumulating experience, afford a 

 strong presumption that the organism is the cause of the disease. In the case 

 of foul brood this matter has been completely proved by the following experi- 

 ments, the details of which will be found in Mr. Cheshire's part of this paper. 

 With a cultivation in milk he sprayed a comb containing a healthy brood. 

 allowing the spray to act only on a particular part of the comb. This part 

 and no other became affected with foul brood. He has also succeeded in 

 infecting adult bees by feeding them with material containing these cultivated 

 bacilli. 



I have also had the opportunity of watching the effect of feeding flies with 

 material containing spores and bacilli. I was one day testing some milk in 

 which these bacilli were growing; a large blue-bottle fly settled on it and com- 

 menced to eat. I at once put a large glass funnel over the insect, leaving plenty 

 of air. When I came to the laboratory twenty-four hours later, the fly was in 

 the sitting posture on the table and was dead. Its juices were full of these 

 bacilli, as shown by microscopical examination and by cultivation. 



Other animals which I have tested are more or less refractory to this bacillus. 

 I have kept cockroaches for days in a box in which was milk containing these 

 bacilli mixed up with sugar. I have also kept them iu a box containing a piece 

 of paper which had been thoroughly smeared with the spores. None of them 

 died, but I can not be certain that in either case they ate any of the material, 

 for I never saw them even near it. 



I inoculated two mice and one rabbit with a spore-bearing cultivation without 

 effect. 



I injected half a syringeful of a spore-bearing cultivation into the dorsal 

 subcutaneous tissue of each of two mice. One of these died in twenty-three 

 hours, the other seemed unaffected, but in the second ease 1 doubt whether 

 the full quantity was introduced. In the case of the mouse which died, the 

 seat of injection and the neighbouring cellular tissue was found to he very 

 oedematous, but no microscopic changes were apparent in the internal organs. 

 Numerous bacilli were found in the oedematous fluid, as also a number of 

 spores which had not been sprouted, and there were also a few bacilli in the 

 blood taken from the heart. This was proved, of course, by cultivation as well 

 as by microscopical examination. On examining sections of the various organs 

 no morbid changes were found, and only very few bacilli were seen in the 

 blood vessels. 



At the same time thai I injected the mice 1 injected a syringeful of the same 

 cultivation subcutaneously into a guinea pig. This animal died six days later 

 with extensive necrosis of the muscular tissue and skin and cheesy looking 

 pat-lies distributed through it. Then' was no true pus. On making sections 

 of the necrosed tissue numerous bacilli, apparently Bacillus alvei, were seen, 



