THE MICROSCOPE. 15 
and trustworthy observers in this field agree that the pro- 
cess of rotting, or putrefaction, is due to the influence of the 
bacteria. “It is an accepted fact that no putrefaction can occur 
without the presence of bacteria and they are the sole cause of such 
decomposition.” In proof of this we cite the voluminous experi- 
mental works of Schroeder, Dusch, Pasteur, Schwann, Helmholtz, 
Tyfidall, Cheyne, Ziegler, Magnin, Sternberg, Van der Broek, 
Roberts and others. 
Had Dr. Gregg taken proper care to exclude the germs of 
bacteria from the blood it would not have rotted in the time of his 
experiments or if he had taken proper care to detect the bacteria he 
would have found them in countless hosts doing their proper work 
in his rotting blood. 
These experiments are therefore worthless, proving nothing 
against the theory he set out to overturn and the strain of philoso- 
phical musing in which the author indulges rests upon the pure 
fabric of imagination and belief. 
To avoid error, however, the doctor further treated a clot of 
blood so as to obtain as nearly pure fibrine as was possibie in a 
crude way. This fibrine he boiled and rotted and treated in various 
ways; he states, “with much the same results in many particulars, 
although it was not so rich in developments as the rotting blood.” 
We have examined many of these specimens carefully and in 
several ways. In one the usual forms of fibrine are plainly shown 
and easily recognized. The specimens prepared from rotting 
fibrine were make up of bacteria as is plainly revealed by careful 
staining. We may say here that we have separately and collectively 
made experiments to test the identity of fibrinous forms with 
bacteria and the results were in every case negative. In no single 
instance was fibrine found to imitate the bacteria in its behavior 
towards the various reagents that are used in the study of* the 
bacterial forms. We find further that early in the study of these 
organisms one of the most prominent “‘bacterists” called attention to 
the necessity for the use of some ordinary care in the study of 
bacteria in order to avoid the very mistakes that Dr. Gregg unjustly 
assumes have been made. Years before Dr. Gregg called attention 
to this subject, Cohn mentions the resemblance between filamentous 
bacteria and that of fibrine as it separates from the blood. 
European observers have been working with their eyes open and 
