418 Chapter XIII 



anthrax spores and the tubercle bacillus could be destroyed by gastric 

 juice, after a prolonged sojourn in a sufficient quantity of this fluid. 

 Comparative researches, made with aqueous solutions of hydrochloric 

 acid, have demonstrated that the bactericidal action of the gastric 

 juice depends solely on the amount of this acid that it contains, that 

 is to say, the pepsin plays no part in the process. This juice exerts 

 no true digestive action on the micro-organisms, but it destroys 

 a certain number of them by its hydrochloric acid. This antiseptic 

 action may also be inferred from a series of demonstrations on the 

 exaggerated microbial multiplication in cases where the gastric juice 

 has been poor in hydrochloric acid. Several observers have confirmed 

 this bactericidal action of the gastric juice which is exerted specially 

 against certain species capable of causing grave infective diseases. 

 On the other hand, certain bacteria and other lower fungi are quite 

 resistant to the antiseptic action of this fluid ; they adapt themselves 

 very readily to an existence in the stomach. Consequently there 

 exists in this organ, even in animals such as the dog, whose gastric 

 juice contains most hydrochloric acid, a special flora, whose most 

 characteristic feature is the relative insensibility to the acidity 

 of this medium. The Blastoinycetes, along with the yeasts and the 

 Torulae, constitute the most frequent representatives of this flora ; 

 alongside these may be grouped the Sarcinae and certain acidophile 

 bacilli. Miller 1 has isolated several of these micro-organisms from 

 the contents of the stomach, and has observed that, mixed with the 

 [439] food, they resist the action of the gastric juice, even that of the dog, 

 whose hydrochloric acid content is greater than in man and many 

 of the other mammals 2 . But these acidophile micro-organisms have 

 no pathogenic power and consequently are not much to be feared. 

 It is very doubtful whether even the infective bacteria which are 

 easily killed by the gastric juice in vitro, are often destroyed in the 

 stomach. The typhoid coccobacillus, which has shown itself to be so 



1 Deutsche med. Wchnschr., Leipzig, 1885, no. 49. 



2 Amongst this acidophile flora one species merits particular attention. This is 

 a spirillum, discovered by Bizzozero in the mucous membrane of the stomach of the 

 dog. Salomon (Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. Parasitenk., Jena, 1896, Bd. xix, S. 433) 

 has studied this organism, not only in the dog, but in the cat and Norway rat. 

 Multiplying on the mucous membrane, the very mobile spirillum penetrates into the 

 epithelial cells or is met with inside vacuoles. These latter being in communication 

 with the external medium, the spirilla can readily penetrate by the openings. This 

 fact has, then, nothing in common with phagocytosis, where it is the cell which 

 ingests the micro-organisms by means of its amoeboid movements. 



