91 



time being been immune from its effects through 

 various agencies which will afterwards be alluded to. 



When however, owing either to the extra virulence 

 of the organism itself induced by its own previous 

 and individual environment during its development, 

 or else to the diminished power of resistance exhibited 

 by the host in consequence of the temporary in- 

 capacity of its phagocytes (the police force of the 

 internal republic), the bacillus, after obtaining an 

 entrance, proceeds to do the bird to death, it may 

 effect this in a variety of ways ; or rather it may leave 

 its traces — as apparent to the naked eye — on a variety 

 of organs. 



Thus a bird may die of "j^neumonia" (without 

 the pneumococcus), of " tuberculosis " (quite innocent 

 of the tubercle bacillus), of "enteritis" ("caused by 

 rape seed"), and of numerous other diseases, as for 

 example " spleenic apoplexy," the existence of all 

 which is equally with their supposed causes purely a 

 matter of ingenious guess-work. Even " diphtheria " 

 and "apoplexy" are sometimes shewn by the micro- 

 scope to be manifestations of septicaemia, and not to 

 be due, as they would be if the names were deserved, 

 to the Klebs-Loeffier bacillus in the one case and some 

 disarrangement of cardiac force combined with 

 diseased and weakened blood vessels in the other. It 

 must be of course fully admitted that extravasations 

 do occur at times without the aid of the septic 

 bacillus and in the ordinary way, but at the same 

 time in many cases of Septic Fever there are to be 

 found more or less diffused hoemorrhagic stains in the 

 brain and skull that are certainly not so caused, and 

 which are due either directly or indirectly to the 

 action of the toxin or blood-poison originated by the 

 microbe and acting on the blood itself either before 

 death or probably immediately after it. 



Of all diseases however with which Septicoemia is 



