324 SYNOPSIS OF CONTINENTAL VETERINARY JOURNALS. 
he notified it to his class every year, he does not seem to have 
attached much importance to it.) We have termed it the 
f Bacteria disease/ because, having obtained the Bacteria in 
an isolated, perfectly pure state by means of repeated culti¬ 
vations in inert media, we have been enabled by inoculation 
with them to produce the disease and death, and, on the other 
hand, we have shown that every other constituent of the 
charbonaceous blood is unable to produce the disease. 
Hence a programme of research presented itself. Is not 
spontaneous charbon simply caused by Bacteria and their 
germs, and if it is so, whereabouts in Eure-et-Loire is the habi¬ 
tat ? This being settled, f spontaneous ; charbon would be 
explained. These questions have not been thoroughly settled 
by the first series of investigations of which I am going to 
give an account, but the idea that spontaneous charbon is 
produced by Bacteria, as is artificial charbon, is sufficiently 
probable now to allow me to take it as my guide and to act 
upon it, while reserving its actual proof for future work. 
Hence we have first tried whether charbon can be generated 
by charbon impregnated food, smeared directly over the sur¬ 
face with Bacteria or their germs, and if thus the symptoms 
of spontaneous charbon may be produced. We have shown 
that by this means it is difficult to transmit charbon. We 
took growing Lucern, and watered it with a cultivating fluid 
containing Bacteria. 
Sheep having one or more feeds from this did not all suc¬ 
cumb, often indeed, in flocks of from three to six, the mor¬ 
tality was nil. But this was not always the result, and 
when death ensued, it was always from charbon. Besides, 
we observed that when under these conditions charbon shows 
itself, it has a period of incubation of four, five, six, seven, 
or ten days, although by its latest symptoms it most fre¬ 
quently seemed rapidly destructive, as in cases of spontaneous 
charbon. Hence we infer that if in Eure-et-Loire there exist 
Bacteria germs spread over food or over the soil, they must 
be very abundant and with difficulty inoculated. So the 
inoculation to become efficacious would require special condi¬ 
tions. Such we have endeavoured to obtain mostly 
with the food-stuffs of the animals everything which could 
injure the commencement of the alimentary canal, by wound¬ 
ing the mouth, tongue, pharynx, the tender parts about the 
glottis, &c. So a food consisting of Bacteria-impregnated 
Lucern, with the different kinds of thistles which we find 
in fields or on the borders of roads, or with barley awns, 
produced an increased fatality. But even in such cases many 
animals either did not become affected or threw off the dis- 
