112 
D. E. SALMON. 
6. When substances containing the Bacillus rods alone are 
somewhat diluted with distilled or well-water, the development of 
the rods is not stopped; but if the dilution is excessive, the organ¬ 
ism is soon destroyed, and after thirty hours, inoculation fails to 
produce the disease. That is, the actively growing organism re¬ 
quires a certain concentration of the nutritive fluid in order to 
accomplish the spore-formation. 
7. If flakes containing spores are taken from the watch-glass 
(paragraph 5 above), containing putrid but still virulent blood, and 
placed in a test-tube full of distilled water, the virulence is not 
destroyed, but is retained for weeks unchanged. 
8. Such flakes may also be dried, and after a certain time 
moistened with water and again dried, and this repeated indefi¬ 
nitely without destruction of virulence. 
9. A watch-glass of fresh charbon blood placed in a room at 
8° (46.4° F.) remains virulent for only three days. The rods at 
this time have not formed spores and show the granular, disin¬ 
tegrating appearance which indicates their death. 
Here, then, we have a series of facts which show the connec¬ 
tion between the virulence of the blood and the presence of the 
Bacillus anthracis. A single fact of this kind might indeed be 
called a coincidence, but even two such facts would, from the na¬ 
ture of the case, afford a strong probability of the virus being 
identical with the organism; but when it comes to a set of nine 
facts, each of which taken alone would be a remarkable confirm¬ 
ation, it seems to me that, as scientific men, we must accept them 
as a demonstration. If 45° destroys the virus before spores have 
formed, but has no effect upon it afterwards; if diluting the virus 
largely with water destroys its power before spores have formed, but 
has no effect upon it afterwards; if hermetically-sealing destroys the 
virus before the spores have formed, but is without effect after such 
spore-formation; if putrefaction destroys the virus when there is not 
sufficient access of air for the formation of spores, but has no effect 
under opposite conditions ; if, in short, the preservation of the 
virus for any considerable time only occurs when the conditions 
are such that resting-spores form in the Bacillus rods, then, 1 
have no hesitation in accepting it as a fixed fact that charbon is 
