PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
Mepicat Microscorrcan Soctery. 
Friday, December 18th, 1874. 
JaBez Hoae, Esq., President, in the Chair. 
Dr. Payne made a communication upon the presence of Bacteria 
in disease. 
He remarked that organized bodies were found not only exter- 
nally as in parasitic diseases of the skin, but internally as in 
malignant pustule, where bacteria in large quantities were seen in 
‘the blood and in the discharges, forming the materies morbi of that 
affection. In the class of specific fevers and in pyemia from 
wounds, similar organized structures form the materies morbi also. 
The presence of these bacteria is best studied in pyzemia. 
The majority of these cases are from injury, the disease begin- 
ning locally and spreading throughout the body—a proposition not 
always admitted ; and hence the old theory that pus was the material 
earried in the blood current. This is disproved by two considerations : 
Ist. That the pus actually forms where the secondary deposit 
appears. 2nd. There is no proof of the absorption of pus. 
The nature of the materies morbi and its method of transmission 
were then dwelt upon; with regard to the latter point, until Vir- 
chow’s theory of thrombosis, two views were held; one that pus 
got into the veins coming from the seat of injury and of suppura- 
tion; the other that the pus began in the veins, the result of 
phlebitis. According to Virchow, clots were first formed in the 
veins; they softened and the products of their disintegration were 
carried into the system. This explanation not satisfying all cases— 
especially those of puerperal pyeemia—it was suggested that the same 
septic matter is conveyed by the lymphatics ; and recent research 
would seem to show that these latter were really rather concerned in 
its transmission than the veins. Then followed Virchow’s theory of 
Embolism, the complement of that of Thrombosis; but even a plug 
in a vessel failed to explain the general disorder of Pyzemia, and 
hence the attention was directed to the nature of the materies morbi 
itself. 
With regard to the nature of this material Dr. Payne pointed 
out that bacteria were found in cases of pywmia, and generally if 
the specific fevers were properly searched for. The examination of 
the blood for these did not give constant results, and the mobile 
