192 TRANSLATIONS FROM CONTINENTAL JOURNALS. 
to be dying. I hastened to examine his blood, and ascer¬ 
tained that it contained an enormous quantity of Bacteria, 
identical with those found in the blood of the sheep. The 
number of these corpuscles was so great that I could hardly 
give an idea of them except by comparing them with the my¬ 
riads of the spermatic filaments found in the semen of animals. 
The blood of the other rabbit, examined forty-eight hours 
after the inoculation, presented no infusoria whatever. The 
next day the animal died unexpectedly. The blood, exa¬ 
mined half an hour after, contained a considerable number 
of Bacteria, similar to the preceding. A third rabbit was 
inoculated with the blood of the first, and while the blood 
was yet fresh, which died at the end of seventeen hours, after 
a very short agony. This was examined almost at the 
instant of death, and the blood was found to contain the 
same sort of Bacteria as the others. The number of these 
corpuscles was not so considerable; nevertheless, they sur¬ 
passed by a great deal the number of the corpuscles of the 
blood. The rat was reinoculated with the blood of the first 
rabbit, but for all that it is still alive (26th of July), and 
presents nothing particular in its blood. 
The Bacteria of splenic apoplexy are free, straight, stiff, 
cylindrical filaments, of variable length—between the fourth 
and twelfth thousandth part of a millimetre, and of extreme 
thinness. The largest sometimes have one, rarely two, in¬ 
flexions at an obtuse angle; by a great magnifying power, 
traces of a division into segments may be perceived to exist. 
They have no spontaneous motion whatever. By desiccation, 
they still preserve their.form. Sulphuric acid or caustic 
potass does not destroy them, applied either in solution or a 
concentrated state. They comport themselves in respect to 
reactions in the same way as the most simple conserves (sic). 
When the blood putrefies, the traces of segmentations are 
more visible. They have divers inflexions, and are divided 
by segments. As far as I am able to judge at present, they 
disappear entirely when the blood is completely putrefied. 
This fact alone would clearly separate them from the cate¬ 
gory of infusoria, which ferment in putrefied substances, if, 
on the other hand, they were not already distinguished by 
their development in the living blood, so to speak, and that 
without any characteristic odour. It is a long time since 
doctors in medicine and naturalists have theoretically ad¬ 
mitted that contagious maladies, epidemic fevers, the pest, 
&c., are determined by invisible animalcula or ferments; 
but I am not aware that any positive observation has ever 
confirmed these views. 
(To be continued .) 
