17 



the Antiseptic method of treatment of wounds, which has 

 been attended with so much success, and has been accepted 

 even more fully abroad than in our own country. 



Much good work was also done on the Continent. In 1866 

 Rindfleisch showed that not only were organisms present in 

 the wound, but that they were also to be seen in the tissues, 

 and Von Recklinghausen and Waldeyer traced them into the 

 walls of the metastatic abscesses of Pysemia. Birch- 

 Hirschfeld showed that the unhealthiness of the wound was 

 directly related to the number of organisms to be found 

 there. He further detected them in the blood, and showed 

 that the severity and rapidity of the general infection was in 

 proportion to the number of Bacteria there present. Klebs 

 studied the mode in which the organisms found their way 

 into the general circulation, and on one occasion saw them 

 pass through the walls of an eroded blood vessel. 



The experimental method was also adopted on the Con- 

 tinent, where observers were unhampered by Government 

 interference. Majendie showed that these diseases could be 

 transmitted by inoculation, and that by this process their 

 virulence could be increased. Devalue continuing to experi- 

 ment came to more exact results ; he showed that less than 

 2000th of a drop of putrid blood was never fatal to a sheep ; 

 but he came to the conclusion that a trillionth of a drop, an 

 amount too small for the mind to appreciate, after transmis- 

 sion through several animals might be fatal. 



Professor Koch also conducted some very important 

 investigations, to which I must refer somewhat in detail. 

 For his infecting material he employed putrid blood or putrid 

 meat juice. He found that the putrefaction must not be 

 carried too far if the best results are to be obtained. In his 

 first experiments he injected five drops of this liquid under 

 the skin of a mouse. In many cases this caused the death 

 of the animal in from 4 — 8 hours. On Post-Mortem exami- 

 nation the greater part of the fluid was found at the place of 

 insertion, and contained a variety of forms of organisms, the 

 same, in fact, as those present in the original liquid. 



B 



