88 PHYSIC 



examples of which we might adduce erysipelas and 

 scabies. 



The primary or immediate effects of zymosis consist 

 of those resulting from the foreign organic or microbic 

 invasion, and its destructive and disorganising influence 

 on the living textures, the vital properties of which become 

 impaired and perverted, the secondary effects being those 

 due to the continued presence in the affected textures of 

 the bodies attacked, of the toxines, to which the growth 

 of the zymotic or microbic agencies give rise. 



The zymotic germs or organisms may attack their 

 human hosts in many ways and along numerous paths, 

 in fact, along every inlet to and outlet from their bodies ; 

 they may thus be air-borne, water-borne, or hidden within 

 the articles of food and drink consumed, or they may enter 

 by every chink in the external covering and protective 

 envelopes of the body, as well as through the linings of its 

 hollow viscera ; but however the invasion be effected, and 

 whether by foraging scouts or a whole army corps of the 

 "locust brood," the overrunning and occupation of the 

 invaded structural territories become the final result. 



A few of the main lines of zymotic invasion and attack 

 may be enumerated and considered in more or less detail, 

 and first, we, following our last paragraph, would refer to 

 the air-borne microbes, which effect their entrance by way 

 of the respiratory organs and by the respiratory organs 

 we mean the whole mucosa lining these organs, from the 

 nasal passages and accessory pneumatic cavities of the face 

 and head, to the minutest pulmonary vesicular spaces. In 

 the extent of assailable surface included in this area, there 

 are abundant points where invasion can be accomplished 

 with a minimum of difficulty, and we find that these points 

 are taken advantage of by the bacterial invading forces ; 

 thus the nasal fossae, with their communicating air spaces, 

 offer an ideal surface to which air-borne spores can adhere, 

 and, if not molested or removed, grow and develop, by 

 continuity of medium and pabulum, along the olfactory 

 inter-neurilemmar spaces into the inter-meningeal spaces of 

 the cerebro-spinal cavity, and by the intra-olfactory pas- 

 sages into the associated lateral ventricles and other intra- 

 cerebro-spinal spaces. Thus, also, the glosso-pharyngeal 



