402 BACTERIA IN INFECTIOUS DISEASES. 



rods like those described by Eberth. Letzerich 

 also claims to have recognized the rnicrococci 

 which he supposes to be the specific germs of 

 typhoid in the blood and in the sputum. Moxon, 

 iu a recent paper " On our Present Knowledge of 

 Fever/' remarks as follows : 



" You must not suppose that one has only to get a 

 microscope and a slide and put a little fever blood under 

 it to find it full of germs. No ; try in any of our cases 

 of typhoid in the wards, and you will find these germs 

 by no means very easily discovered or obvious things. 

 At the outset of such an inquiry, you must take notice 

 that the blood-serum is often crowded with minute par- 

 ticles, which must not be confounded with bacteria, and 

 which exist, often to a large extent, in the blood of 

 healthy persons. During last winter's clinical session, 

 some of my most acute and intelligent -friends searched 

 carefully for germs in the blood of several severe typhoid 

 cases. The result was that one bacterium was seen, 

 only one, but I was told it was a very active one. When 

 I say that Mr. Booth saw it, you will know it was well 

 seen, for we all regard Mr. Booth as one of the very 

 ablest and very best students at Guy's; but perhaps 

 the main fact was that all were quite sure that there 

 was only one bacterium." l 



The attempts which have been made to produce 

 typhoid fever in the lower animals have not given 

 any results of a sufficiently definite character to 

 make it possible to study the etiology of this dis- 

 ease by the method of inoculation with pure-cul- 

 tures of suspected organisms. And for the present 



1 Lancet, December 9, 1882, p. 974. 



