340 BACTERIA IN INFECTIOUS DISEASES. 



Some even hold that in animals giving milk the s} r stem 

 does not suffer material!}', but that it is saved by the 

 drainage of the germs through the mammary glands, 

 and that thus a milk-sick cow may remain for a con- 

 siderable time unsuspected. . . . The disorder proves 

 fatal in man as in animals." 1 



A careful study of this disease by the experi- 

 mental method would probably demonstrate its 

 parasitic nature ; and it is extremely desirable that 

 its etiology may be worked out, both in the inter- 

 est of science and of medicine. 



MEASLES. Coze and Feltz state that bacteria 

 are found in the blood of measles, of extreme 

 minuteness and great mobility. In the period of 

 invasion the nasal mucus contains small "bacteri- 

 form elements." The inoculation of this blood did 

 not produce the death of rabbits ; but these animals 

 were sick for two or three days, as the result of 

 such inoculations, and " very slender and active 

 rods" were found in their blood (Magnin). Klebs, 

 also, found micrococci in the trachea, and in blood 

 taken from the heart of infants that had fallen 

 victims to this disease. In the blood, preserved in 

 capillary tubes, these micrococci developed in 

 spherical masses. 



Braidwood ai\d Vacher describe certain small 

 spherical bodies first found by them in the breath 

 of children in the acute stage of the disease, which 

 they believe to be the contagious elements. These 



1 Prof. James Law, National Board of Health Bulletin, Vol. II. No. 

 4, p. 466. 



