366 BACTERIA IN INFECTIOUS DISEASES. 



If further proof is required, it is to be found 

 in the comparison which the writer has made 

 in his paper on the " Germicide Value of Certain 

 Therapeutic Agents," l of the action of germicides 

 upon the micrococcus as contained in culture-fluids, 

 as compared with the power of the same agents 

 to destroy the virulence of septic blood, as tested 

 by inoculation experiments (/. c. p. 342). 



It is worthy of remark that, in the very numer- 

 ous culture-experiments made by. the writer at 

 different times and places, in which a sterilized 

 culture-fluid has been inoculated with a minute 

 quantity of blood from the heart of a rabbit just 

 dead from the form of septicaemia under consider- 

 ation, or from a vein, or from effused serum in the 

 cellular tissue, the micrococcus already described 

 has always been found in the culture after twenty- 

 four hours' incubation, and it has invariably been found 

 alone, no other micro-organism having been associ- 

 ated with it in any case. This is offered as very 

 satisfactory proof of the reliability of the method 

 adopted, i. e., as regards the possibility of acci- 

 dental contamination ; and of the constant presence 

 of this particular micrococcus in the fluids men- 

 tioned. 



Shortly before the publication of the writer's 

 first report relating to this form of septicaemia in 

 the rabbit, Pasteur announced to the French Acad- 

 emy his discovery of a " new disease " resulting 



1 American Journal of the Medical Sciences, No. CLXX., April, 

 1 b s j . 



