AND CONTENTS OF THE MOUTH. 177 



Pathogenic Fungi Cultivable.— (<3;) Micrococcus of the sputum^ 

 Septiccemia (Figure 96 of Miller). — This is the same bacterium 

 that Pasteur and others obtained from healthy and pathological 

 sputa. Klein was the first to cultivate it. It results in oval cocci, 

 diplococci, and capsulated chains identical with Pfietwiococcus. 

 Subcutaneous injections with its cultures produce septicaemia and 

 death in 24 — 36 hours. Even the blood of animals inoculated is 

 totally infected ; but the infection, once overcome, is contracted 

 no more. Its virulence is attenuated by cultures in milk. This 

 bacterium (continues Miller), lodging constantly in the human 

 mouthy passes from there into the pulmonary tubes ; so that the 

 uncleanliness of the mouth would be the real predisposing 

 condition to pneumonia, in so far as it allows the diplococci in 

 question, deposited there from the air, to multiply. From those 

 views to ours, to the entirely secondary propagation of such bac- 

 teria in the pulmonary products, there is but one step. (See 

 Section 4 of Memoir on Whooping-cough.) 



ip) Bacillus crassus sputigenus (Fig. 97 of Miller, from the 

 blood of a mouse). — This bacterium was found by Kreibohm once 

 on the patina of the tongue and twice in the liquids of the mouth; 

 it is longer than it is broad, but often shorter in its younger articu- 

 lations ; resists Gram's method ; sporifies through heat. Mice, 

 inoculated even with small quantities, die in forty-eight hours, 

 exhibiting myriads of bacteria in their liver and blood. A copious 

 injection of it into the veins kills rabbits and dogs in from 

 three to ten hours from gastro-enteritis. 



{c) Staphylococcus pyogenus albus and aureus^ and Streptococcus 

 pyogenus. — These bacteria, held as promoters of suppuration, are 

 brought from outside into the mouth, where they seem to find a 

 fit soil. Black, upon ten specimens of buccal liquids and scrap- 

 ings from the tongue, found seven times Staphylococcus pyogenus 

 aureus — four times the albus and three the Streptococcus^ which he 

 believes with a careful search can always be found. Vignal never 

 came across the true streptococcus ; seldom found the two staphi- 

 lococci. Netter, upon 127 specimens, found only seven times the 

 Staphilococcus pyogenus aureus. Miller also rarely found these 

 micrococci. 



id) Micrococcus tetrageftus (Fig. 98 of Miller). — This micrococ- 



