AND CONTENTS OF THE MOUTH. 311 



It would be useful to persevere in this kind of research, and I 

 propose to resume it on the first opportunity, in order to prove the 

 identity of Leptothrix buccalis with pr<^putialts, and then that of 

 bacteria and bacilli of the air-passages with those of the genito- 

 urinary organs. 



We have an argument by analogy for the arrival of the elements 

 or germs of Leptothrix in the urethra, in the introduction of more 

 bulky germs, like those of superior fungi, probably of the genus 

 Penicillium, either in the urethra itself or in the bladder, of which 

 we have already given an instance in our article upon fungi of the 

 male urethra. 



Naturally, the removal, insignificant in healthy conditions, 

 increases in the morbific ones, and that is the reason of the 

 gonococci in blennorrhoea ; but we have observed beforehand 

 that in blennogenous pus the most common form of bacteria is 

 not that of gonococci or curved diplococci of type g^ /, p (Fig. 2), 

 but that of common diplococci with round heads, sometimes 

 surrounded by a halo, either within or outside the epithelia or the 

 corpuscles of pus. I have already treated this argument in the 

 other paper upon a case of carcinoma of the bladder, in which 

 the urine showed a considerable number of curved diplococci or 

 gonococci, independently of any blennogenous contagion whatever. 



In the Memoir on Whooping-cough, and in the first section 

 of this work, I have touched upon the presence of such curved 

 diplococci or gonococci in the sputa or saliva ; as well as upon the 

 singular discovery of true diplococci in a halo, morphologically 

 identical with the so-called pneumococci, in the spermatic fluid 

 recently discharged through illness. 



I think that the surprise or incredulity which at first may have 

 been aroused from the present observations will cease, when it is 

 considered that the incentive of all these varied disseminations is 

 always the same, i.e., that the gonococcus as well as the pneumo- 

 coccus or the bacillus of Koch proceed, in great probability, from 

 small seeds of the same genus ; from the parasite that lives nor- 

 mally at the entrance to the digestive and air passages, at the 

 egress of the lachrymal as well as the genito-urinary passages. 

 What wonder, then, if the pneumococcus, towed, so to speak, 

 along the urethra, is found in the spermatic fluid ; and the gono- 



