42 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 
so that we must conclude that the loss of virulence and suscepti- 
bility to antiseptic agents have no necessary connection. The 
susceptibility was in all probability to he referred to the change in 
the cell membrane induced by the loss of the enzyme function. 
The pigment microbes which had lost their power of liquefying the 
gelatine were also compared with the unaffected organisms, and 
found to have become much less resistant to acidity. 
It has been already stated that if the application of the degrading 
agency is properly graduated, Prodigiosus and Indicus can lose their 
pigment faculty, although their power of liquefying the gelatine is 
not appreciably lessened. It is probable that in a similar way 
anthrax can lose its toxine faculty without its other functions being 
seriously affected. In support of this it may be mentioned, that 
Gamaleia states that his vaccines , prepared by means of bichromate 
of potash, did not exhibit the great loss of vitality which Fliigge 
observed in Pasteur’s vaccines. Pasteur’s method of attenuation by 
the use of high temperatures would appear to be so coarse a method 
that not merely the pathogenic function, hut the vitality of the 
organism as a whole is affected. But this general loss of function 
and lessened vitality, depending as it does on the method employed, 
can in no sense he regarded as characteristic of the vaccines. 
We have had occasion, frequently, in the course of this paper to 
refer changes in the power of resistance of an organism to a probable 
change in the condition of the cell membrane, and it may he not 
uninteresting here to briefly mention certain morphological variations 
in the bacillus, some of which may, perhaps, he regarded from this 
point of view. I have repeatedly observed that when virulent 
anthrax has been grown for some time in bouillon, anaerobically, 
the shape of the organism undergoes a very remarkable change. The 
rods and filaments are no longer to be seen, and in their place we 
have a series of larger spherical or oval bodies, apparently multiply- 
ing by fission to form chains and clusters. This torula-form is best 
investigated in its natural state, as it does not stain readily and 
appears to shrivel up when dried. When examined in this way the 
appearance of these spherical bodies is so different from what one 
finds normally in anthrax, that one feels inclined to put down its 
presence to the entrance of some chance impurity. Gelatine plates 
laid down from such cultures proved however that the cultivations 
