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 (I. 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 // Jin* uiruriaUij becnfoiuul 

 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. Xo. CLXX., April, 

 1883. 



