358 BACTERIA IN INFECTIOUS DISEASES. 



kins University. The result of these was very 

 definite, and experimental proof was obtained that 

 the fatal result is due to the presence of a micro- 

 coccus in the saliva, which finds the conditions 

 favorable for its rapid multiplication when intro- 

 duced beneath the skin of a rabbit, and which 

 gives rise to an infectious form of septicaemia, in 

 which, owing to its presence in the blood of an 

 animal recently dead, a minimum quantity of 

 blood taken from the heart of a victim to the 

 disease, is infallibly fatal to other rabbits when 

 introduced in like manner into the subcutaneous 

 cellular tissue. The evidence in support of the 

 etiological role of the micrococcus in this induced 

 septicaemia of the rabbit is of the same nature as 

 that, just recorded, in the form of septicaemia of 

 the mouse studied by Koch, and as that by which 

 the anthrax bacillus has been shown to be the 

 cause of anthrax. It may be summarized as 

 follows : 



(#) The poison is proved to be particulate by filtration 

 experiments. 



(5) The virulent fluids, saliva, blood, culture-fluids, 

 all contain a micrococcus. (See Figs. 1 and 3, 

 Plate IX.) 



(c) These fluids produce an identical result, and this 

 result does not vary according to the quantity of mate- 

 rial introduced, as is the case where poisonous proper- 

 ties depend upon the presence of a chemical poison. 



(6) Those agents which destroy the vitality of the 

 micrococcus destroy the virulence of the fluids contain- 

 ing it. 



