484 BACTERIOLOGY. 



fever that many investigators have suspected them to 

 be the cause of this disease (Kurth, Baginsky, E-oskin). 

 They are found, however, regularly in the secretion of 

 healthy individuals (in 100 examinations by us we found 

 them in 83, and probably could have found them in 

 the others by longer search). Their presence in scarlet 

 fever is most probably due to their increase in the dis- 

 ordered mucous membrane. 



The causal relation of the streptococcus to the above- 

 mentioned diseases has been amply proved by inocula- 

 tion experiments both in man and animals. Fehleisen 

 has inoculated cultures, obtained in the first instance 

 from the skin of patients with erysipelas, into patients 

 in the hospital suffering from inoperable malignant 

 growths lupus, carcinoma, and sarcoma and has 

 obtained positive results, a typical erysipelatous in- 

 flammation having developed around the point of 

 inoculation after a period of incubation of from fifteen 

 to sixty hours. This was attended with chilly sensa- 

 tions and an elevation of temperature. Persons who 

 had recently recovered from an attack of erysipelas 

 proved to be immune. These experiments were under- 

 taken on the ground that malignant tumors had previ- 

 ously been found to improve or entirely disappear in 

 persons who had recovered from accidental erysipelas. 

 During the last few years this fact has been therapeu- 

 tically applied to the treatment of malignant tumors 

 by the artificial production of erysipelas by the inocu- 

 lation of pure cultures of streptococcus or of their toxic 

 products, and in some cases of sarcomata, with con- 

 siderable success. In carcinomata the results have 

 been very slight. In this country the experimental 

 work upon this subject and the actual treatment of 



