UPON VIRULENT DISEASES-CHICKEN CHOLERA. 
45 
belongs to a different group than that of the vibrios. I imagine 
it will take its place at a future clay with the virus yet of un¬ 
known nature, when, as I hope they soon will be, these last virus 
will have been successfully cultivated. 
The culture of our microbe presents very interesting pecu¬ 
liarities. 
In my preceding studies, one of the media of culture that I 
have utilized with the most success is the decoction of liops-yeast 
(levure de biere) with water, filtrated to a state of perfect lim¬ 
pidity, and then rendered sterile by heat above 100 degrees. The 
most varied microscopic organisms do well in this licpiid, specially 
if it is neutralized. For instance, the bacteridse of anthrax grow 
in it in a few hours, in a surprising manner. It is a surprising 
fact that the medium of culture is quite fatal to the life of the 
microbe of chicken cholera; in less than forty-eight hours it dies. 
Is it not this that is observed when a microscopic organism re¬ 
mains inoffensive to an animal species upon which it has been in¬ 
oculated ? It is inoffensive, because it does not develop in the 
body of the animal, or because its development does not reach 
the organs essential to life. 
The sterility of yeast, sown with the microbe, offers a pre¬ 
cious mean of recognizing the purity of the cultures of this or¬ 
ganism in the bouillon of chicken, A pure culture, sown in 
yeast, gives in it no development; the yeast remains limpid. On 
the contrary, it becomes turbid, and cultivates by the organisms 
of impurity. 
I pass now to a still more singular peculiarity of the culture 
of the microbe of chicken cholera. The inoculation of this or¬ 
ganism to Guinea-pigs does not produce death as surely as in 
chickens. In those animals, of a certain age especially, one ob¬ 
serves only a local lesion at the point of inoculation, which ends 
by an abscess of various size. After opening spontaneously, this 
closes up and gets well without the animal losing its appetite, or 
exhibiting any of the signs of disturbed health. Sometimes 
these abscesses last for several weeks before suppurating, sur¬ 
rounded by a pyogenic membrane, and filled with creamy pus 
where the microbe swarm alongside the pus corpuscles. It is the 
