80 SYNOPSIS or CONTINENTAL VETERINARY JOURNALS. 
Professor Feser, of Munich, had been accustomed to test 
doubtful cases of charbon by inoculation of white rats, which 
multiply rapidly, and are therefore generally available. But 
he observed that sometimes his rats exhibited a marked 
immunity from the ill effects of inoculation. Further ob¬ 
servation assured him that this was the case with those fed 
on meat, hut not with those kept on a vegetable diet. He 
determined to prove this by special experimentation. His 
methods and results occur in the Wochenschrift f. Thierheil- 
kunde und Thierzucht , Nos. 24 and 25, 1879. He placed 
his rats in two sets, and for several weeks fed one lot on 
flesh alone, the other only on bread. With the same virus 
he afterwards inoculated animals from each set, and 
found that while those of the first set resisted the disease 
those of the last rapidly succumbed to it. (1) A rat fed 
on bread: injected subcutaneously inside the left thigh 
three drops of anthrax blood. Died after eight days, and 
the tissues abounded with Bacteria. The serous fluid of 
this animal killed a rabbit in three days. (2) Four rats 
. fed essentially on meat inoculated subcutaneously inside left 
thigh with blood and pulp of the kidney of a goat which 
died the night before. All remained healthy, though a 
rabbit similarly inoculated died of charbon five days 
after. (3) Two of these rats again similarly inoculated, 
though the fluid used sufficed to destroy a rabbit and a 
goose, suffered no harm. (4) A rat previously unsuccessfully 
inoculated was again subjected to the action of a drop of 
blood from the heart of a calf which died from anthrax 
the evening before. A negative result. After five weeks'’ 
exclusively bread diet the same animal was similarly inocu¬ 
lated, and died of charbon in thirty-two hours. (5) A 
female rat, previously unsuccessfully inoculated, having been 
fed on flesh only, brought forth nine young ones. The 
family was fed on thirty grammes of anthrax meat, and 
again the same, with bread steeped in anthrax blood. No 
harm ensued. But the mother’s diet was changed to bread* 
She was then fed on the flesh of a rabbit suffering from 
charbon for two days. She was found dead in her cage 
three days after. Of the nine young ones, three were placed 
with three of the progeny of another mother, and fed only 
on cooked beef and horse flesh, while the remaining six were 
fed on bread. All of them were inoculated with the same 
quantity of charbon blood from the heart of a rabbit; all 
those fed on bread died rapidly between the twenty-second 
and thirty-second hours; the six fed on flesh remained 
perfectly healthy. (6) Three rats were kept in the same 
