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Updated: May 9, 2025
The sole thing to be done is to get rid of and keep away the germs of the Panhistophyton. As might be imagined, from the course of his previous investigations, M. Pasteur was led to believe that the latter was the right theory; and, guided by that theory, he has devised a method of extirpating the disease, which has proved to be completely successful wherever it has been properly carried out.
There is not a single one of all the apparently capricious and unaccountable phenomena presented by the Pébrine, but has received its explanation from the fact that the disease is the result of the presence of the microscopic organism, Panhistophyton. Such being the facts with respect to the Pébrine, what are the indications as to the method of preventing it?
But the sacrifice has not been in vain. It is now certain that this devastating, cholera-like, Pébrine, is the effect of the growth and multiplication of the Panhistophyton in the silkworm.
It is contagious and infectious, because the corpuscles of the Panhistophyton pass away from the bodies of the diseased caterpillars, directly or indirectly, to the alimentary canal of healthy silkworms in their neighbourhood; it is hereditary because the corpuscles enter into the eggs while they are being formed, and consequently are carried within them when they are laid; and for this reason, also, it presents the very singular peculiarity of being inherited only on the mother's side.
But if, on the other hand, the Panhistophyton is an independent organism, which is no more generated by the silkworm than the mistletoe is generated by the apple-tree or the oak on which it grows, though it may need the silkworm for its development in the same way as the mistletoe needs the tree, then the indications are totally different.
These have been carefully studied by Lebert, and named by him Panhistophyton; for the reason that in subjects in which the disease is strongly developed, the corpuscles swarm in every tissue and organ of the body, and even pass into the undeveloped eggs of the female moth. But are these corpuscles causes, or mere concomitants, of the disease?
It is obvious that this depends upon the way in which the Panhistophyton is generated. If it may be generated by Abiogenesis, or by Xenogenesis, within the silkworm or its moth, the extirpation of the disease must depend upon the prevention of the occurrence of the conditions under which this generation takes place.
And seeing that the whole progress of modern investigation is in favour of the doctrine of continuity, it is a fair and probable speculation though only a speculation that, as there are some plants which can manufacture protein out of such apparently intractable mineral matters as carbonic acid, water, nitrate of ammonia, metallic and earthy salts; while others need to be supplied with their carbon and nitrogen in the somewhat less raw form of tartrate of ammonia and allied compounds; so there may be yet others, as is possibly the case with the true parasitic plants, which can only manage to put together materials still better prepared still more nearly approximated to protein until we arrive at such organisms as the Psorospermioe and the Panhistophyton, which are as much animal as vegetable in structure, but are animal in their dependence on other organisms for their food.
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