ANALYSIS OF CONTINENTAL JOURNALS. 
373 
virus, they called the one parasitical diseases and the other 
virulent diseases. But even to-day we aim at assimilating 
these parasitical beings to the viruses themselves; those 
agents up to this time so mysterious that people are even 
ignorant of the physical state in which they exist in nature. 
Between the acarus, the cause of mange, and the element 
to which is due the development of blennorrhagia; between 
the little nematode worm which engenders trichinosis, and 
the principle whose action on the organism produces typhoid 
fever in the healthy subject, there would be no fundamental 
difference. Thus, there should no longer be any distinction 
between contagious maladies. All w T ould be parasitic. The 
active agents, the cause of virulent maladies, would reappear 
in the category of proto-organisms, which Pasteur has proved 
to be the essential agent in the principal fermentations. 
These maladies, in their various anatomical and physiological 
manifestations, would only be the expression of the develop¬ 
ment of these minute beings. I will presently prove to you, 
that with the general character that it affects, this tendency 
of opinion is altogether erroneous, and during these confer¬ 
ences I will frequently have occasion to revert to this proof. 
For the present, you must content yourselves with my 
assertions. I acknowledge that phenomena analogous alto¬ 
gether, or even identical, to putrid fermentation, can mani¬ 
fest themselves in the living organism under the influence of 
the development of certain vibrionae. 
On the contagious character of the affections that result 
from this development, I have not the slightest doubt what¬ 
ever. But I refuse them, very categorically, the virulent 
faculty. They do not form part of our domain. The general 
theory of virus that we seek to establish will not apply to 
these affections. We will, therefore, strike out all the elements 
of study which they might furnish from the considerations by 
whose aid w r e seek to establish the bases on which we wish to 
rest this theory. This is why we will not speak of anthracoid 
diseases. It is necessary to wait until more complete 
researches have taught us more exactly than we npw know, 
the distinctions to make between anthrax with bacteriae and 
anthrax without them. 
(To be continued .) 
