218 
A. LIAUTARD. 
proceeded as follows : Blood from carbunculous animals loaded with 
bacteridies being sent to me by M. Trasbot, of Alfort, I added to it 
drop by drop and carefully, absolute alcohol, so as to increase the volume 
of the original liquid to four times its quantity ; I filtered the thick 
mass and dried quick in a vacuum the coagulum well washed with alco- 
hoh A small piece of this dry matter, introduced under the skin of a 
Guinea pig, killed it in less than a day; its blood produced death in 
another, and even m a dog ; and that evident virulency existed for sev¬ 
eral successive generations, the Guinea pig being, so to speak, usect as 
soil for the cultivation of the virus, and the dog as the means of testing 
it: and, however, this virulent blood did not contain bacteridies since 
the mixture with the alcohol. 
I will go further: the alcoholic precipitate being washed off with 
water, I found that this liquid carries with it the virulent principle 
w ich can be precipitated again by a new addition of alcohol. But I 
must say that these successive washings diminish the intensity of the 
virus, as the last one failed to kill dogs, and even Guinea pigs did not 
succumb beyond the third generation. 
From these experiments we must conclude: that it exists in the 
carbunculous blood a toxic and virulent element, which resists the ac¬ 
tion of compressed oxygen and of alcohol, and that it can be isolated 
like the other diastasis. This is an important fact upon which I desire 
to call attention. Now, is this element condensed upon the bacteridies 
t temselves ? Was it formed at the onset, secreted, so to speak, by the 
bacteridies, and should it have a property, yet unknown to produce of 
secretion, that of multiplying upon the living body ? Would its viru¬ 
lency be something else than the bacteridies, so that the carbunculous 
blood would possess two causes of death ? These are so many ques- 
tions that I am studying. 
REMARKS RELATING TO THE EXPERIMENTS OF M. BERT UPON 
ANTHRAX. 
By C. Davaine.* 
From recent observations of M. Bert, anthrax may exist and spread 
without the presence of the filiform bodies that I have named bacteri¬ 
dies, which then would not be the virulent agent of the disease. 
To prove such an exceptional fact, I think it would have been 
necessary to show that the blood deprived of bacteridies had all the 
other known properties of carbunculous blood. 
* Presented b y M ^ a3 t eu r t<) the Academie des^cienc^^Paris7^neAth ) T8JT. “ 
