PATHOLOGICAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
Ill 
this and prove that, when the spores are once formed, the activity 
of the virus is retained indefinitely though exposed to cold, dry¬ 
ing, putrefaction, or when hermetically sealed, then, I maintain, 
we have a demonstration that the Bacillus anthracis is the essen¬ 
tial cause of charbon, and that the disease is due to no other 
agency. 
The following observations are presented as deciding the 
question : 
1. Blood and pieces of spleen, or lymphatic glands, if dried 
as soon as possible after the death of the animal, soon lose their 
activity—the smaller particles in twelve or thirty hours, and all 
within five weeks cultivation. When their inactivity is proved by 
inoculation, experiments show that the Bacillus has perished. 
2. Such pieces of spleen, or gland, which have been dried 
slowly in a warm room, may retain their virulence for certainly 
four years. These are found to contain spores which may be cul¬ 
tivated and which grow into filaments that again form spores. 
3. If a bottle or test-tube is filled with charbon blood, tightly 
corked, and placed in. an incubator at 35°, it very soon has an 
extremely disagreeable odor of putrefaction, and within twenty- 
four hours the rods have disappeared, and the fluid is no longer capa¬ 
ble of producing the disease when inoculated. This is evidently 
due to the absorption of the available oxygen by the septic bac¬ 
teria, as may be rendered clear by the next two paragraphs. 
4. If a drop of such charbon blood is placed on a slide and 
covered, and the cover cemented air-tight, the rods grow until the 
oxygen is exhausted, as shown by the spectroscope. They then re 
main stationary, and in a few days become granular and disin 
tegrate without forming spores. Such blood is no longer capable 
of producing charbon 
5. If the charbon blood be placed in a watch-glass where there 
is free access of air, and then kept in an incubator at the proper 
temperature, the putrefaction goes on as before, and swarms of 
micrococci and bacteria appear. The development of the Bacil¬ 
lus anthracis is accomplished, however, as though no other organ¬ 
isms were present, the spores are formed and sink to the bottom, 
and inoculations produce disease for a long time afterward (at 
least twelve weeks, as shown by experiment). 
