16i> Profs. Percy Frankland and Marshall Ward. 



We may with advantage quote their experiments in full in the fol- 

 lowing tables (pp. 167 and 168). 



Their results are in nearly all important respects entirely out of 

 harmony with those of Meade Bolton, to whose experiments we may 

 in the next instance refer. 



Meade Bolton (' Zeitsch. f. Hygiene,' vol. I, 1886, p. 76) found 

 that on introducing* anthrax bacilli presumed to be devoid of spores 

 into ordinary drinking water (Gottin gen water supply) sterilised 

 by steam and kept ac 20° C, they were no longer demonstrable by 

 culture after 6 days, whilst at 35° C. the same result was obtained 

 in 55 hours. On the other hand, when he employed sporiferous 

 anthrax bacilli, they were still demonstrable after 90 days at 20° C, 

 both in sterile distilled and in sterile well water of bad quality, 

 whilst at 35° C. in the same waters the organisms disappeared between 

 the 30th and the 90th day as tested by cultivation. The waters were 

 not tested for virulence by inoculating animals, nor does it appear 

 whether or no in these latter experiments there was any multiplica- 

 tion of the anthrax bacilli, as an uncountable number were in the first 

 instance introduced into the water. It will be most convenient to 

 quote Meade Bolton's tabulated results in extenso (see p. 169). 



Results in substantial agreement with those of Meade Bolton have 

 aJso been recorded by Koch (Gartner-Tiemann's book, p. 585) and 

 Naegeli, who both state that the spores of anthrax preserve their 

 vitality in distilled water for upwards of one year. Hochstetter 

 (' Arbeiten a. d. Kais. Gesundheitsamte,' vol. 2, p. 1), again, found 

 the anthrax bacilli free from spores to persisb both in sterilised dis- 

 tilled and in sterilised drinking water for 3 days only at the outside 

 (in some cases they actually disappeared in a quarter of an hour), whilst 

 the sporiferous bacilli were still alive and virulent after 15-1 days in 

 the same waters as well as in unsterilised seltzer water. (Por de- 

 tailed table of results, see pp. 170 and 171.) 



Similarly again Hueppe ('Journ. f. Gasbeleucht.,' 1887, p. 129) 

 found the anthrax bacilli no longer demonstrable on the fifth day in 

 sterilised drinking water kept at 16° C. 



Straus and Dubarry ('Arch, de Med. Exper.,' 1889; 'Ann. de 

 l'lnst. Pasteur,' vol. 4, pp. 109 — 124), on the other hand, found even 

 the bacilli free from spores to retain their vitality in sterile drinking 

 water at 20° C. for 28 days in one case and 65 days in another, and 

 they proved that when such sporeless bacilli are introduced into dis- 

 tilled water they can form spores and persist for upwards of 131 days. 

 The greater longevity of the anthrax bacilli in the hands of these 

 investigators is doubtless due to their having employed a more sensi- 

 tive method of cultivation than the others to whom we have referred, 

 for, instead of simply submitting the waters to plate cultivation in 

 the ordinary way, they first added broth to the water, so as to en- 



