ROBERT KOCH 375 



although this would undoubtedly have yielded most interesting results. 

 I have intentionally refrained from entering into details of morbid 

 anatomy, as only the etiology interested me, and as I did not feel 

 qualified to undertake a study of the morbid anatomy of traumatic 

 infective diseases. I must therefore leave this part of the investiga- 

 tion to those who are better able to undertake it. 



Nevertheless I consider that the results of my researches are suffi- 

 ciently definite to enable me to deduce from them some well founded 

 conclusions. 



In this summary I shall, however, confine myself to the most ob- 

 vious conclusions. It has indeed of late become too common to draw 

 the most sweeping conclusions as to infective diseases in general from 

 the most unimportant observations on bacteria. I shall not follow 

 this custom, although the material at my command would furnish 

 rich food for meditation. For the longer I study infective diseases 

 the more am I convinced that generalisations of new facts are here a 

 mistake, and that every individual infective disease or group of closely 

 allied diseases must be investigated for itself. 



As regards the artificial traumatic infective diseases observed by 

 me, the conditions which must be established before their parasitic na- 

 ture can be proved, we completely fulfilled in the case of the first 

 five, but only partially in that of the sixth. For the infection was 

 produced by such small quantities of fluid (blood, serum, pus, etc.) 

 that the result cannot be attributed to a merely chemical poison. 



In the materials used for inoculation bacteria were without excep- 

 tion present, and in each disease a diflferent and well marked form of 

 organism could be demonstrated. 



At the same time, the bodies of those animals which died of the 

 artificial traumatic infective diseases contained bacteria in such num- 

 bers that the symptoms and the death of the animals were sufficiently 

 explained. Further, the bacteria found were identical with those 

 which were present in the fluid used for inoculation, and a definite 

 form of organisms corresponded in every instance to a distinct dis- 

 ease. 



These artificial traumatic infective diseases bear the greatest re- 

 semblance to human traumatic infective diseases, both as regards their 

 origin from putrid substances, their course, and the result of post- 

 mortem examination. Further, in the first case, just as in the last, 



