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EDITORIAL. 
EDITORIAL, 
ANTHRAX—ITS PROPHYLAXY. 
We have at different times, in the pages of the Review, pre¬ 
sented our readers with the various experiments that were carried 
on by Mr. Pasteur and his assistants, Messrs. Chamberland and 
Roux, upon the virus of contagious diseases, and especially of 
anthrax. It is thus that we have made our American colleagues 
acquainted with the action of bacteridies in the development of 
anthrax, with the physico-chemical and physiological conditions 
of their existence; with the manner in which their germs were 
brought back to the surface of the ground by the earth-worms, 
as also how the virulency of the bacteridie could be reduced so 
that a true vaccine matter could be inoculated, and animals be 
thus protected from the effects of the most virulent inoculation 
afterwards. 
These magnificent and highly valuable observations were not, 
however, admitted by all. Others engaged in similar investiga¬ 
tions denied, step by step, the correctness of the discoveries of 
Mr. Pasteur and his co-laborers; and amongst those adversaries 
to the demonstrations of Mr. Pasteur none prove more stubborn 
than Mr. Colin, the eminent Professor of Physiology at Alfort. 
Once already, in relation to the possibility of communicating an¬ 
thrax to fowl, has Mr. Colin been obliged to acknowledge his 
errors, and no doubt he will have to do it again when time has 
proved, as in fact it has already done, that anthrax has lost much 
of its dangers by the means now afforded to owners of cattle, 
that is, prophylactic inoculation. 
The experiments of Mr. Pasteur were not tried extensively at 
first, and for this reason the positive evidence of their validity 
was doubted ; but since the experiments at Pouillv-le-Fort, there 
can be no more doubt as to their value. We reprint in this 
month’s issue the programme of these experiments, with the mag¬ 
nificent results obtained, results which were already announced by 
Mr. Pasteur before any of the inoculations had been made. 
