442 PROTEIN POISONS 



has been done on the germicidal properties of the blood. 

 As early as 1872 Lewis and D. Cunningham 1 demonstrated 

 that non-pathogenic bacteria injected into the circulation 

 soon disappear. In the blood of 12 animals thus treated 

 bacteria could be found after six hours in only 7. Of 30 

 animals, bacteria were found in the blood of only 14 after 

 twenty-four hours, and of 17 animals bacteria were found 

 in the blood of only 2 when the examination was made 

 from one to seven days after the injection. In 1874, 

 Traube and Geschiedlen 2 found that arterial blood, taken 

 under aseptic precautions from a rabbit into the jugular 

 vein of which 1.5 c.c. of a fluid rich in putrefactive bacteria 

 had been injected forty-eight hours previously, failed to 

 undergo decomposition when kept for months. These 

 investigators attributed the germicidal properties of blood 

 to its ozonized oxygen. Like results were obtained by 

 Fodor 3 and Wysokowicz. 4 The latter accounted for the 

 disappearance of the bacteria, not through the germicidal 

 action of the blood, but by supposing that they found 

 lodgement in the capillaries. The first experiments made 

 with extravascular blood were conducted by Grohmann 5 

 under the direction of A. Schmidt in his researches on the 

 coagulation of the blood. It was found that the virulence 

 of anthrax bacilli, as demonstrated by their effect on rabbits, 

 was diminished by being kept in blood. He supposed that 

 the bacilli were altered in some way by the process of 

 coagulation. In 1887 Fodor 6 made a second contribution 

 on this subject, in which he combated the retention theory 

 of Wysokowicz. One minute after the injection of 1 c.c. 

 of an anthrax culture into the jugular vein, in eight samples 

 of blood, Fodor found only one colony of the bacillus. He 



1 Eighth Annual Report of the Sanitary Commission of the Government 

 of India. 



2 Schlesische Gesellschaft f. Vaterland. Cultur. 



3 Archiv f. Hygiene, iv, 1886. 4 Zeitsch. f. Hygiene, i, 1886. 



6 Ueber die Einwirkung d. Zellenfrien Blut-plasma auf einige pflanzliche 

 Mikroorganismen, Dorpat, 1884. 

 6 Deutsch. med. Woch. 



