Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/104

92 a memoir by Dr. Koch on splenic fever (Milzbrand, Charbon, malignant pustule), which seemed to me to mark an epoch in the history of this formidable disease. With admirable patience, skill, and penetration, Koch followed up the life-history of bacillus anthracis, the contagium of this fever. At the time here referred to he was a young physician, holding a small appointment in the neighborhood of Breslau, and it was easy to predict, as I predicted at the time, that he would soon find himself in a higher position. When I next heard of him he was head of the Imperial Sanitary Institute of Berlin. Koch's recent history is pretty well known in England, while his appreciation by the German Government is shown by the rewards and honors lately conferred upon him.

Koch was not the discoverer of the parasite of splenic fever. Davaine and Rayer, in 1850, had observed the little microscopic rods in the blood of animals which had died of splenic fever. But they were quite unconscious of the significance of their observation, and for thirteen years, as M. Radot informs us, strangely let the matter drop. In 1863 Davaine's attention was again directed to the subject by the researches of Pasteur, and he then pronounced the parasite to be the cause of the fever. He was opposed by some of his fellow-countrymen; long discussions followed, and a second period of thirteen years, ending with the publication of Koch's paper, elapsed, before M. Pasteur took up the question. I always, indeed, assumed that from the paper of the learned German came the impulse toward a line of inquiry in which M. Pasteur has achieved such splendid results. Things presenting themselves thus to my mind, M. Radot will, I trust, forgive me if say that it was with very great regret that I perused the disparaging references to Dr. Koch which occur in the chapter on splenic fever.

After Koch's investigation, no doubt could be entertained of the parasitic origin of this disease. It completely cleared up the perplexity previously existing as to the two forms—the one fugitive, the other permanent—in which the contagion presented itself. I may say that it was on the conversion of the permanent hardy form into the fugitive and sensitive one, in the case of bacillus subtilis and other organisms, that the method of sterilizing by "discontinuous heating" introduced by me in February, 1877, was founded. The difference between an organism and its spores, in point of durability, had not escaped the penetration of Pasteur. This difference Koch showed to be of paramount importance in splenic fever. He, moreover, proved that while mice and Guinea-pigs were infallibly killed by the parasite, birds were able to defy it.

And here we come upon what may be called a band-specimen of the genius of Pasteur, which strikingly illustrates its quality. Why should birds enjoy the immunity established by the experiments of Koch? Here is the answer. The temperature which prohibits the