398 
M. L. TRASBOT. 
durability of the virulency of gourme can be established. I 
would advise my colleagues in favorable positions for conducting 
such experiments, not to neglect their opportunities. These ex¬ 
periments are simple, somewhat tedious perhaps, but of great in¬ 
terest in their relation to comparative pathology, and perfectly 
harmless to the animals subjected to them. 
Again, it remains to be determined whether the dry pus will, 
like the dry vaccine, as proved by M. Chauveau, transmit the 
disease. If it were so, there would be a new series of circumstan¬ 
ces, under the influence of which an accidental contamination 
might take place, and which would probably quite overthrow 
the theory of primitive development. 
IV 
Let us now consider how the accidental propagation of the 
disease takes place. 
This second part of the question, based only upon observed 
'facts* is no doubt less precise than the other, since all the mater¬ 
ial, obtained by direct experiment, is simple, very significant, 
and easily to be reproduced indefinitely. It deserves, however, 
to be treated somewhat exclusively, as by collecting all observed 
facts occurring from time to time under their notice, some gener¬ 
al data, somewhat exact, can be gathered which may be of some 
use in the establishment of prophylactic measures. 
Considering the facts obtained by clinical observations and by 
experiments whose results we noticed in the preceding paragraph, 
we may, in principle, say that the equiue virus, placed either in 
the liquid or powdered form, in contact with an absorbing surface, 
which could not chemically alter it, will give rise to the disease 
whenever the organism in which it is so introduced shall be in a 
condition favorable to its reception. I have no doubt on this 
point. Whenever the introduction of the intact virus occurs si¬ 
multaneously with the existence of this aptitude, the disease will 
develop itself. 
The circumstances in which these two necessary and efficient 
conditions of the transmission of gourme may be realized, are sep¬ 
arated into two distinct groups, the first including all those in 
