THE BACTERIA IN CONTAGIOUS MALADIES. 155 
Coze and Feltz, in their work, have demon- 
strated the constant presence of bacteria in the 
blood of animals dead from septicemia. This cor- 
relation has driven them to admit that “there 
is a direct relation between the infectious acci- 
dents and the little foreign organisms which play, 
in the blood, the réle of ferments, and reproduce 
themselves.” New researches confirmatory of the 
first have been communicated to the Academy by 
the same authors. Opposed to these conclusions 
upon the bacterial origin of septicemia, some ex- 
periments have recently appeared in England, then 
in Berlin, which weaken them. Zuelzer, struck by 
the analogy which exists between septicemia and 
intoxication by atropine (dilatation of pupils, in- 
testinal paralysis, acceleration of heart’s action), 
has sought for the presence of an alkaloid by the 
method of Stas. In collaboration with Sonnen- 
schein, he has succeeded in discovering it. Bac- 
teria cultivated artificially, and introduced in 
considerable quantity into the mouth, under the 
skin, and into the vessels of various animals, have 
never seemed to him to produce septic accidents. 
But the scene changes as soon as an addition is 
made to the injected matters of two to five centigr. 
of neutral sulphate of atropia. The period of in- 
cubation always lasted from nine to twelve days. 
The same year, Riemschneider deduced from his 
observations the same result, and confirmed thus 
the similarity between atropine and sepsine. The 
bacterial origin of septicemia received, however, a 
new support from the experiments of Vulpian. 
