ABOUT twenty-five years ago Professors Brauell and Pollender in Dorpat, Russia, made an important discovery, which, though at first not considered as of much significance, soon led to investigations, the results of which have already revolutionized the etiology of contagious and infectious diseases. Brauell and Pollender, and soon afterwards also Dr. Leisering in Dresden, discovered in the blood of man and beast, affected with anthrax or splenic fever, an infinite number of exceedingly fine,

more »

... arently solid, almost transparent, straight and motionless, rodshaped bodies (cf. Virchow's Archiv. fuir Pathol., Anat. und Physiol., und flAr Klinische Medicin, XI, 2). They called them staebc/tenfoermzige Koerper (Bacilli), but left it undecided whether the same bear a casual connection with the morbid process, constitute a product of the same, or are merely accidental. Still, finding these Bacilli in every fatal case of anthrax, Brauell and Pollender considered their presence as something characteristic, and as of great diagnostic and prognostic value. As early as i86o the relation of these Bacilli to anthrax formed a topic of discussion in the annual meeting of the Veterinary Society of the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg. Later investigations, but especially those by Davaine, Koch, Cohn, Pasteur, Toussaint, and more recently by Dr. Hans Buchner, in Munich, have demonstrated beyond a doubt that these Bacilli, first discovered by Brauell and Pollencer of the Imperial Veterinary School of Russia at Dorpat, and first known as Brauell and Pollender's staebchenfoermoige Koerper, constitute the real and sole cause, and also the infectious principle, of that terrible disease known as anthrax or Milzbrand to the Germans, charbon to the French, and anthrax or splenic fever to the English. About the same time, or soon after Brauell and Pollender published their discovery, other simi-