192 
PROF. DESSART. 
Bacteridies, properly so called, that is, the microbes in the 
state of mycelium, present themselves in the field of the micro¬ 
scope under the shape of short threads,* or of more or less flex- 
uous batonnets extremely fine, cylindrical and immobile. These 
are formed of segments, few in number, 5 or 6 to the maximum. 
They have a length varying from 4 to 12 and sometimes 50 w. 
and a thickness of 8 to 1 w.f 
Whether carbuncular bacteridies are introduced into the econ¬ 
omy through internal passages or the external teguments, or that 
circumscribed alterations appear or not on the skin and in the 
subcutaneous cellular tissue, charbon is specified, with or without 
localizations. In fact, there are always localizations , only in this 
last condition, the lesions are visible. 
External localizations, primitive or consecutive, affect differ¬ 
ent forms, among which are circumscribed tumors, more or less 
voluminous; diffused cedematous infiltrations, active from the 
first; gangrenous sloughs, ecchymotic spots, of various sizes, and 
bloody extravasations. They appear in the various regions of 
the body, even on the visible parts of the internal integument, 
(Glossanthrax.) They are thus analogous in the interior of the 
organism. 
Works on pathology often describe, as so many different 
diseases, some external localization which are most specially 
manifest, hence the expressions that are so frequently found in 
the old nosography of charbon. To-day these have only a symp¬ 
tomatic value. 
Whether tlie general alteration of the blood, and conse¬ 
quently the nervous system, is more or less rapid, or that the re¬ 
sistance of the patient is greater or less, anthrax appears under 
'Observed in the liquids of cultures, carbuncular bacteridies have a much 
greater length and have different dispositions from those observed in the fluids 
taken directly from the patient, or from a fresh cadaver. M. Toussaint (Culture 
des Bacteridies, p. 53) has observed that in the prepared liquids, bacteridies are 
not constantly immobile, at least as loug as they have not reached sufficient 
length to divide. 
1A. Raillet, (Les bacteries, Archives Veterinaires, No. 12, 1880.) It is very 
probable that this extreme length of 50 w. has been observed only upon bac- 
toridies in cultivation. Mr. Raillet is not specific upon that point. 
