186 ANNUAL OP SCIENTIFIC DISCOVEEY. 



which have acted as ferments, and have produced a state of action re- 

 sembling natural diseases. By injecting purulent putrid matter into 

 the veins of animals, diseases presenting all the characteristics of ty- 

 phoid fever were produced. Contagious diseases, such as glanders, 

 which is produced by the injection of glanderous humors, are facts 

 which prove that a general affection may be induced by the simple in- 

 troduction into the blood of a substance capable of acting as a ferment. 

 M. Polli also believes that he has proved, by a series of experiments, 

 that it is possible to neutralize morbific ferments in the blood of animals, 

 by chemical substances which do not act in a manner incompatible 

 with life ; and it is by these substances that he hopes to treat success- 

 fully those diseases of which fermentation is the primary cause. It is 

 well known that sulphuric acid gas prevents alcoholic and acetic fer- 

 mentation, and also the fermentation of animal substances and organic 



CJ 



matters in general. Thus, it arrests, if it be already begun, the fer- 

 mentation produced by saliva and diastase in contact with starch. M. 

 Polli has proved that alkaline or earthy sulphites possess the same an- 

 tiseptic properties. 



From a number of experiments made upon dogs, and alluded to in 

 his memoir, he has determined the safe and efficacious dose of sulphites 

 for internal administration, the changes which they undergo in the or- 

 ganization, and their curative action in the affections produced by the 



injection of putrid or contagious matters into the blood. The followino- 



j? j? i 



is an account of some of his experiments : 



Ten grammes of sulphite of soda were given to a dog during a period 

 of five days, then one gramme of pus was injected into the femoral vein. 

 The animal became dull, and refused the food which it was offered, but 

 the next day its spirits returned and it ate willingly. Two days after, 

 the same experiment was repeated, and was followed by the same re- 

 sults. At the end of a few clays, the animal was perfectly cured. 



One gramme of pus was injected in two portions into the veins of a 

 dog, of a more robust nature than that operated upon in the preceding 

 experiment. The animal became spiritless, but the next day took some 

 food ; the following day it was very low, it breathed with difficulty, its 

 wounds were sanious, its, left leg and foot swollen, and it died ten days 

 afterward. > ' 



An equal quantity of putrid blood was injected into the veins of three 

 dogs ; one died five hours after the infection, another after five days of 

 illness, and the third, to which some sulphite of soda had been adminis- 

 tered, after having experienced some trifling symptoms of illness, rap- 

 idly recovered. 



Numerous other experiments made with putrid blood and morbific 

 mucus proved that the animal died with all the symptoms of a general 

 infection, whenever sulphite of soda was not administered, and that, on 

 the contrary, they speedily recovered under its influence. 



In a communication, on essentially the same subject as the above, 

 made to the British Association, 1863, by Dr. G. Robinson, the author 

 alluded to the circumstance of the analogy between many of the phe- 

 nomena of fevers and other zymotic diseases, and the ordinary process 

 of fermentation having been perceived and recognized by Hippocrates 

 and the oldest writers on medicine. Their idea was, that a poisonous 

 ferment existing in the atmosphere entered the mass of the blood, and 



