REPORT ON THE DISEASE KNOWN AS ANTHRAX. 
95 
The tibrine is the plastic material of the blood, and whatever 
destroys or lessens the quantity of fibrine materially reduces the 
consistence and viscidity of that fluid, and may render it less fit 
or altogether incapable of carrying on the vital functions which 
the blood has to perform. 
Professor Toussaint, of the Toulouse Veterinary College, in 
concluding some inferences, deduced from some experiments 
conducted by him to prove the action of bacteria when injected 
or introduced by inoculation, says : “ Inoculation and subcutaneous 
and intravascular injection of anthrax blood did not always give 
rise to generalized anthrax. An old ass resisted repeated attempts 
of this kind ; I have also failed with dogs; and I have also not 
once succeeded in communicating the disease to pigs three or 
four months old, no matter what means were employed. But if 
these animals did not die of anthrax, the local lesions produced 
were nevertheless of the greatest interest, as they throw light upon 
a property possessed by the bacteridiie which enables us to explain 
the inflammatory phenomena observed in various subjects. The 
local effects of these organisms appear to me to result from the 
presence of a soluble matter (diastase) secreted or excreted by 
the parasites, and which enjoys to a high degree, though this 
varies according to the species which nourish the bacteridice , 
phlogogenous properties.” He further says, in order to ascertain 
more exactly the part played by the bacteridice and their excreta , 
“I had the anthrax blood filtered and injected the filtrate. This 
experiment only led to the production of a general inflammation 
altogether local. The inoculation or injection of bacteridias, culti¬ 
vated according to Pasteur’s method, has given rise to the same 
inflammatory phenomena as the anthrax blood produces. The 
difference in the two experiments was due to the fact that bacteri- 
dise had lived for a certain sur place and in becoming multiplied 
had produced a certain quantity of phlogogenous matter. From 
the results of these experiments it appears to me that along with 
these bacteridise there exists a substance endowed with intense 
phlogogenous properties, which should be largely taken into ac¬ 
count in interpreting the lesions which are observed in anthrax. 
These experiments also demonstrated that the phlogogenous mat- 
