EXTRACTS FROM FOREIGN JOURNALS. 
164 
THE INFLUENCE OF FOOD UPON THE RECEPTIVITY OF RATS TO 
THE VIRUS OF ANTHRAX. 
Mr. Feser had remarked that white rats, which he kept for 
experiments, remain, at certain times, refractory to the inocula¬ 
tion of charbon, no matter how active ; while at others they would 
take it very readily. Mr. Feser cannot explain this except by the 
change of food—vegetable first and then animal—to which they 
were submitted. 
During several weeks, some rats were exclusively fed with 
meat, and again some with bread only. These last, all died after 
an inoculation of anthrax, while the former resisted unless they 
received a large quantity of virus. 
A series of close observations was then started, in dividing the 
rats into groups and feeding them exclusively with such and such 
food. Inoculation made on the animals fed with meat entirely 
remained sterile ; still, in injecting afterwards those rats with a 
large quantity (half a cubic centimeter) of strong virus from the 
blood of the heart of a cow, all died ; the inoculation of three 
or four drops of the same blood was without results on rats, while 
it killed rapidly other animals, rabbits for instance. More than 
that, these rats fed with meat and resisting the virus, were then 
fed with vegetables, and six weeks later one drop only of car- 
buncular blood killed them in thirty-six hours. 
It then seems to result from the above, that the nature of food 
has a great influence upon the disposition for contracting anthrax. 
—Annates de Belgique. 
TRICHINA ON BOARD THE “CORNWALL” 
J A so-called epidemic of typhoid fever broke out some time 
o on board the Cornwall. Several persons on board died. Dr. 
Power having made post-mortem of one of them, found that 
instead of an epidemic of typhoid fever, it was one of trichinosis, 
probably due to the eating of American pork .—Revue d 1 Hygiene- 
