454 BACTEIUA IN SURGICAL LESIONS. 



Ogston made also a large number of culture- 

 experiments. 



" As might have been anticipated, cultivations of pus 

 of cold abscesses (five cases) yielded uniformly negative 

 results. 



" Cultivations of pus of acute abscesses gave at first 

 the most inexplicable and contradictory results. This 

 was ascribed to the fact that the micrococcus in question 

 is anaerobic, and cannot grow in the presence of oxygen. 

 The plan was therefore tried of growing them in eggs. 

 Newly-laid eggs were washed in five per cent carbolic 

 water ; and, under spray, a minute aperture was pierced in 

 the larger end. One minim of pus from an acute abscess, 

 collected under the strictest antiseptic precautions, was 

 injected by a long-pointed pure syringe into the albumen 

 at the opposite end of the egg. A piece of protective 

 was laid over the aperture. The egg was enveloped in a 

 Lister's dressing, and kept for ten days in the incubator 

 at 98 Fahr. At the end of that time it was opened, 

 and my expectations were fulfilled. The egg was sweet 

 and fresh ; its contents were unaltered, save the yolk 

 was somewhat broken up, and more or less mixed with 

 the albumen ; but the albumen, and sometimes the yolk 

 also, were filled with enormous chains or masses (accord- 

 ing to the sort of coccus used) of micrococci, growing 

 quite as luxuriantly as I had ever observed them when 

 experimenting on animals. A drop of the albumen in- 

 jected into an animal's back now produced typical 

 abscess, with all the symptoms already mentioned ; and 

 the animal, on being killed, showed the micrococci in 

 the blood and invading the tissues, exactly as had been 

 already obtained by the employment of the pus of acute 

 abscesses." 



This is an extremely interesting experiment, 



