Page:The Harveian oration 1888.djvu/20

12 animal inoculated with the smallest drop of anthracic blood, provided it contains bacilli or their spores, dies within 24 or 36 hours—and then in the capillaries of the liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys and stomach incredible numbers of these bacilli can be seen permeating this portion of the vascular system, whilst in the larger vessels even in the arteries and veins of an intestinal villus they may be entirely absent or only seen at long intervals—and it is remarkable that in the capillaries of the brain, skin, muscle and tongue there are fewer than elsewhere. The development of such numbers in so short a time appears almost incredible. The bacillus subtilis however, which is not parasitic, but otherwise very much like bacillus anthracis in all respects, with a good supply of food and oxygen and a temperature of 30" C. (86" F.), doubles its length and divides once every thirty minutes, forming two separate organisms. By an easy calculation therefore, we find that at the end of twenty-four hours the progeny of such a bacillus increasing at such a rate, would amount to upwards of eight hundred millions of millions.

In anthrax it would seem to be quite clear, then, that the bacillus will give rise to the disorder. There can be little doubt also that woolsorters' disease, malignant pustule, and intestinal anthrax in the human subject are developed from the same source.

As an example of a disease connected with a spirillum or spirochaeta we have that of relapsing fever; a disorder in the spread of which it is certain, that contagion from the sick or through the intervention of articles of daily use plays a very important part. During the febrile condition of the patient, a slender thread-like and twisted organism, which is never vistill, but always moving about in various directions, is found