Possibly it is ultramicroscopic. However this may be, it
is not the only infectious disease germ which remains to be discovered.
There is no doubt a living germ in vaccine lymph and in the virus from
smallpox pustules, but it has not been demonstrated by the microscope.
The same is true of foot and mouth disease and of infectious
pleuropneumonia of cattle, although we know that a living element of
some kind is present in the infectious material by which these diseases
are propagated. In Texas fever, of cattle, which is transmitted by
infected ticks, the parasite is very minute, but by proper staining
methods and a good microscope it may be detected in the interior of the
red blood corpuscles. Drs. Reed and Carroll are at present engaged in a
search for the yellow fever germ in the blood and in the bodies of
infected mosquitoes. What success may attend their efforts remains to be
seen, but at all events the fundamental facts have been demonstrated
that this germ is present in the blood and that the disease is
transmitted by a certain species of mosquito--_Culex fasciatus_.
[At the end of the article General Sternberg reproduces the general
orders issued to the army in Cuba with directions for the precautions to
be taken against the disease.
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