TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN JOURNALS. 
61 
TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN JOURNALS, 
GENERAL PATHOLOGY. 
OF THE POSSIBILITY OF RENDERING SHEEP REFRACTORY TO AN¬ 
THRAX BY PREVENTIVE INOCULATION. 
By MM. Pasteur, Chamberland and Roux. 
This note is a critical review of the experiments of M. Tous- 
saint. The fact of the protection from anthrax by preventive 
inoculation is admitted, but the interpretation of the author, 
which however lias been abandoned, is denied. “ From our 
studies,” says M. Pasteur, “ which are very numerous, M. Tous- 
saint’s method is uncertain. Three cases may present themselves : 
1st. The bacterides die by heat, and then the carbuncular blood 
is unlit for preventive inoculation ; 2d. It does not die, but pre¬ 
serves a virulency which kills the sheep; 3d. It is modified. In 
this last case alone, it iqay preserve, that is to say, it may give 
rise to an anthrax which stops, and does not end in the death of 
the animal. Direct preliminary experiments do not more than 
enable us to recognize the condition of the bacteride after the 
warming of carbuncular blood. If we could succeed in obtaining 
it in a condition to permit it to be preserved, still it cannot be 
fixed by culture and often becomes modified with the blood con¬ 
taining it in a few days. The culture of the bacteride, properly 
reduced by heat, gives, again, a virulent bacteride, which is dis¬ 
tinguished especially from the attenuated microbes of chicken 
cholera. Even in our experiments, we have seen that carbuncu¬ 
lar blood kept for 30 minutes at a heat of 55° and whose modi¬ 
fied bacterides could’ yet be cultivated, has given a virulent cul¬ 
ture which killed two out of three inoculated sheep. 
From the above it results that if one wished to inoculate 
flocks of sheep by the artificial method of M. Toussaint, he 
would be exposed to the dauger of great losses, though he might 
affirm that those inoculated which might recover, had been pro¬ 
tected from a subsequent attack. The method supposes, more¬ 
over, that a great quantity of carbuncular blood is at hand, a fact 
which would be a great inconvenience .—Academie de Sciences , 
Gazette-Medicate. 
