86 THE MICROSCOPE. 



The expulsion of the excess of fibrin from the blood, upon 

 those parts where it organizes into a membrane, is, therefore, a 

 strictly conservative effort of nature to get such excess out of the 

 blood and save the life of the patient, by avoiding its coagulation 

 within the vessels, and certain death were it not expelled. 



It is the one especial attribute of fibrin to fibrillate, whether in 

 the clot of healthy blood, in the coagula that form in the heart or 

 arteries from its excess in the blood, or in diphtheritic membranes. 

 And in fibrillating it always organizes first into granules, then these 

 join together into fine threads, which threads contract into spirals, 

 if their ends are left free from attachments, as shown in the cuts. 



Consequently, there was never a drop of healthy blood coagu- 

 lated that it did not yield these three forms of so-called bacteria — 

 spherical, rod-like and spiral; the first two while the fibrin was 

 organizing, and the last while the coagulum was contracting or 

 shrinking into a smaller compass. No clot of blood could ever 

 become smaller, as all do, but for the fibrils contracting into spirals, 

 and thus shriveling the whole mass. 



In the heart-clot precisely the same process is carried out, the 

 excess of fibrin organizing first into granules, and these joining into 

 threads, and the latter contracting into spirals. And, furthermore, 

 the first two of these steps are taken in precisely the same way with 

 the excess of fibrin thrown out of the blood upon any surface, where 

 it organizes into a membrane, while all fibrils, the ends of which are 

 left free from attachments, contract into spirals and this gives us 

 the so-called spiral bacteria in connection with diphtheria. 



Thus it will be seen that this whole question of the membranes 

 of diphtheria, the falsely assumed bacteria in connection therewith, 

 the coagula of tlic heart in this 'disease, etc., maybe placed at once 

 upon a purely scientific basi.s, if the profession so desires. And by 

 this showing, too. it will be seen that the exerci.se of a little common 

 sense, and the |)n)i)er application of a few simple facts to the solu- 

 tion of the subject, by the original promulgators and promoters of 

 the bacteria theory, would have saved the medical profession a great 

 disgrace, would have avoided hastening tens of thousands of patients 

 out of the world in the vain effort to destroy by treatment what did 

 not exist, as vegetable parasites, and would have rapidly advanced, 

 instead of retarded, our knowledge of this terrible disease. — A'. R. 

 GrcfT};; in The fnvcstigator, Buffalo, N. Y. 



