An experimental study of botulism was suggested by the fact that in the investigation of an epidemic which occurred at Stanford University in the autumn of 1913, Wilbur and Ophüls1found thatit differed from the previously reported epidemics in two important respects, namely, that the poisoning was apparently caused by the ingestion of a salad which had been prepared from home-canned beans, and that on postmortem examination of the only fatal case it was found that there was a widespread thrombosis in the blood vessels at the base of the brain and in some of the small blood vessels in the substance of the brain. Since in previous reports on botulism it has been emphasized that the condition is produced only by the ingestion of spoiled meats, and that the characteristic lesions occur only in the Nissl granules and nuclei of the nerve cells, it was deemed im