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Its length of life in sea water would appear to be longer. This may be due to the presence of quantities of sodium chloride. WUNTZ and BOURGE found it alive in sea water after 47 days.

After viewing all the evidence available in regard to the presence of plague bacilli in water, one may conclude that the chances are against such a mode of infection. The strict supervision of water supplies and the recommendations of the Venice Conference in regard to water tanks ou ships, etc., in the presence of infection, must be attended to. but there is no necessity to push the preventive measures further than the general principles underlying the continual preservation of a supply of good potable water.

Amongst the native population, water used for potable purposes may become contaminated, and wells, etc., may become dangerous for the time being through the infection of the water with faces and urine.

Instances of this are only exceptional. The B. pestis and its relation to water would not appear to have the same significance as in the cases of the Bacillus typhosus and the Vibrio choleræ.

WILLIAM HUNTER.

The Chances of Infection from Plague Corpses.

In almost every country where plague is rampant, the question has arisen as to the disposal of the bodies of individuals and animals dead from the disease.

The opinion is widely diffused amongst the laity, and even among a certain class of physicians, that such plague corpses are sources of great danger, and that special precautions ought to be taken to insure the general public against any chance of infection from such a source. Such a general expression of opinion, is given even at the present day.

In many countries where plague is endemic, one finds isolated areas of ground set apart for the reception of every plague corpse. Such is designated "The Plague Cemetery.

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These views have been handed down to us by our forefathers. They still hold sway in the minds of those in authority. They must be relegated to the pre-bacteriological era of our knowledge of infectious diseases, a time during which, practically no proof was available as to the exact meaning of the term infection, the agents of infection and the different modes of dissemination of infection.

With a possession of the knowledge of many of the causal agents of specific infectious diseases, many of the narrow minded and dogmatic principles of pro- phylaxis of olden time, have disappeared. We are in a much better position to-day to assert, what is and what is not dangerous to public health.

In the case of plague corpses, man o animal, all the evidence available, an 1 such is bulky, shows that properly buried plague corpses are in no degree more dangerous than other dead bodies.

In fact special plague cemeteries, from a health point of view, are of no value. Such a statement is made upon facts ascertained by direct observation and experiment.

Plague bacilli have an extremely limited existence in the dead body. It must be remembered that this organism, so far as we know. possesses no means of preserving its species for an indefinite length of time outside the living tissues of man and animals. We know of no prolonged saprophytic existence of the B.

pestis.

The behaviour of the plague bacillus in a plague corpse is something after the following.

During the first twenty-four hours after death the B. pestis multiplies rapidly. Subsequent to this period and the death of all the organs and tissues, the organisin becomes le-s numerous, lost in the colossal growth of the numerous saprophytes, present in all dead bodies, and rapidly dies.