PATHOLOGICAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
261 
PATHOLOGICAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
UPON THE RESPECTIVE PART OF OXYGEN AND OF HEAT IN 
THE ATTENUATION OF ANTHRAX VIRUS BY PASTEUR'S 
METHOD-GENERAL THEORY OF THE ATTENUATION BY THE 
APPLICATION. 
By M. A. Chauyeau. 
The following are the conclusions of the author :~~ 
1st. The facts already known show that heat and oxygen, 
sources of all vital activity, may, for aerobic infectious microbes, 
placed in certain conditions, change themselves into agents of at¬ 
tenuation, alteration and death. 
2d. These conditions of attenuation belong either to the mi¬ 
crobes exposed to them, or to the attenuating agents themselves. 
3d. To determine the conditions of attenuation which are in¬ 
herent to the infectious substance, it is important to use a known 
microbe, the bacillus anthraces , and to take it in the cultures of 
twenty hours, at a temperature -|- 42° 43°, cultures where it 
exists in the state of threads, or virulent baton nets, having a great 
aptitude to undergo the various changes of qualities that one 
wishes to give them. 
4th. It is when the protoplasm of those bacilli is in a state of 
complete inertia, to the point of view of nutrition and evolution, 
that it is best disposed to resent the influence of the attenuating 
actions. But the hereditary transmission of the attenuation then 
takes place imperfectly. 
5th. If, during the effects of the attenuating actions, the pro¬ 
toplasm has retained a certain prolific activity, the attenuation 
takes place with more difficulty, but is more completely transmit¬ 
ted to the future generations. 
6th. No serious attenuation can manifest itself during the in¬ 
tegral action of the developing faculty. 
7th. This faculty being closely connected with the influence of 
heat and of oxygen, the attenuation in its various degrees de¬ 
pends then on the conditions which render these agents agenesi- 
cai, dyogenesical, or engenesical. 
8tli. The absence of oxygen is an essentially agenesical con- 
