260 AUSTRALASIAN 
ities of form, and approximately to measure the size of these 
organisms, still they are so minute, that, as calculated by Mr. 
Cheshire, one thousand millions may be contained in the larva 
of a bee, and of the spores or seeds, as many as one hundred 
millions in the bee’s egg, which is itself only one-fourteenth of 
an inch in length, and one-seventeenth of an inch in diameter. 
= é 
oo = = } aS & » ae, ~ of 
Fig. 118.—BACILLI Fig, 119.—SPORES OF BACILLI 
(greatly magnified), (greatly magnified). 
Having premised so much, it may be stated that Mr. Che- 
shire has established, as the first result of his investigations, 
that the fungoids present in cases of foul brood are not micre- 
cocci, but always bacilli, that they are not the result of the 
disease generated by the decaying larve, but the cause of it, 
generated in the fluids of the bees themselves, and possibly 
transmitted even by the eggs of an infected queen. He says: 
‘“‘Foul brood, then, is a bacedlus disease ; and in these days, when 
the ‘germ theory’ is the question of questions amongst pathologists 
and physiologists, itis extremely interesting for us to note that science 
has lately shown that different species of bacilli also cause consumption, 
cholera, typhoid, leprosy, and many other diseases afflicting the human 
family ; whilst amongst animals glanders, splenic fever, sepitcemia, 
etc., arise from a similar cause.” 
The particular species found in the hive, and which causes 
the disease, has been named by Mr. Cheshire and the late 
lamented secretary of the British Bee-keepers’ Association, 
bacillus alvet, by which name the disease is now more correctly 
designated than by its old one. 
BACILLUS ALVEI UNDER THE MICROSCOPE. 
Mr. Cheskire’s description (illustrated) of the disease, as 
seen by him under a very powerful microscope, is very inter- 
esting ; he says: 
“‘ Taking a small quantity of the juices of a healthy grub, and spread- 
ing it out under a thin glass under the microscope, one is presented 
