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The fact that the excreta of plague patients contain the bacilli in great numbers shews that these micro-organisms are able to multiply in the alimentary canal. There is nothing surprising in the suggestion that the bacilli having once been brought to the mucous membrane of the small intestine through the blood stream should pass into the lumen of the bowel and find a suitable culture medium in its alkaline and albuminous contents. If this be so the passage of organisms into the circulation by the portal system of blood-vessels and through the lymphatics of the abdominal viscera should not occasion surprise that the coeliac and mesenteric glands may shew greater pathological changes, even when infection is through the skin, than the generality of glauds throughout the body.

The fact that the external iliac glands may be the seat of greater lesions than are the superficial inguinal glands, does not, although these glands are not seen until the abdominal cavity is opened, afford support to the theory of infection through the gastro-intestinal tract.

As I mentioned under the heading "Infection through the Skin System" the total areas drained by those glands must be considered.

As regards the internal iliac glands, it must be remembered that they receive the lymph from the pelvic viscera which include the genital organs there situated and the urinary bladder.

To proceed to the third point, namely, that there are found post-mortem evidences of degenerative changes in the mucous membrane and walls of the alimentary canal, this does not necessarily mean that the infection was probably by means of the ingestion of infected material.

The experiments on the production of plague in animals, by feeding with virulent material, by injection hypodermically and by scarification with the application of plague material, which are published in Professor SIMPSON'S Report on Plague in Hongkong shew differing results.

Marked intestinal derangements were produced subsequent to feeding, and also to inoculation by scarification.

The intestines were found healthy in some cases although the method adopted to induce the disease was that of feeding.

These experiments conducted by Professor SIMPSON have been ably and justifi- ably criticized by Lieutenant-Colonel BANNERMAN, I.M.S., Officiating Director-in- Chief, of the Plague Research Laboratory in Bombay.

**

Lieut.-Colonel BANNERMAN gives a report of feeding experiments under- taken by Mr. HAFFKINE. The report shews that none of the animals experiment- ed with died of plague

The animals fed comprised pigs, calves, fowis, turkeys, geese and ducks.

The opinion generally held as to the ordinary farnyard animals up to the tine of publication of Professor SIMPSON's report has been that they do not suffer from plague.

And as a result of this re-investigation undertaken in Bombay it is likely to remain as such until upset by further incontrovertible deductions from experiments free from such sources of error as are justifiably pointed out by Lieut.-Colonel BANNERMAN to have existed in Professor SIMPSON'S work.

There are, however, some points of difference in the methods of feeding be- tween the experiments of Mr. HAFFKINE and Professor SIMPSON. Mr. HAFFEINE gave the animals the carcases of plague infected rats, while Professor SIMPSON fed with plague material derived from human sources and from other previously in- oculated or fed animals either of the same or a different species.

By the method, for example, of feeding one pig with the organs of another any fallacy in the deductions as to the disease which infected the dead pig would obviously be carried on to the next pig fed.

* Report on experiments undertaken to discover whether the common domestic animals of India are affected

by plague. 1904.