376 PASSAGE OF BACTERIA INTO THE BILE. [BOOK II. 



the following : alcohol (Mosler) : atropia, muscarin, strychia (Provost 

 and Binet) : kairin and antipyrin (Prevost and Binet). 



Passage of pathogenic micro-organisms into the bile. 



The normal bile is sterile (Gilbert et Girode) 1 . "At a time 

 when every drop of the circulating blood is teeming with micro- 

 organisms there may not be the slightest transit of them into the 

 urinary and biliary fluids then secreted" (Sherrington 2 ). On the 

 other hand, as the researches of a number of observers have conclu- 

 sively proved, when pathogenic organisms exist in the blood they 

 tend, after a time, to pass into the bile arid urine, 'and their escape 

 into the secreta is sometimes accompanied by the escape of actual 

 blood,' sometimes by the appearance of albumin, although blood be 

 absent. Sherrington is of the opinion that in the normal condition 

 of the hepatic and renal membranes, a passage of micro-organisms 

 through them cannot occur, and that it is in all probability only after 

 the soluble poisons produced by the infection have had time to act 

 upon them that the membranes become pervious to germs. 



The following micro-organisms have been found to make their 

 way into the bile : the bacillus of glanders, B. mallei (Ferraresi and 

 Guarnieri) : the bacillus of typhoid fever, B. typhi abdominalis (Tram- 

 busti and Maffucci): the spirillum of cholera, B. cholerce asiaticce, 

 (Nicati) : B. coli commune (Blachstein) : the bacillus of anthrax, B. 

 anihracis (Oemler, Straus and Chamberland, Sherrington): Staphy- 

 lococcus pyogenes aureus (Pernice and Scagliosi) : B. pyocyaneus 

 (Pernice and Scagliosi, Sherrington): Friedlander's pneumococcus 

 (Pernice and Alessi, Sherrington): B. murisepticus (Sherrington) 3 . 



1 Gilbert et Girode. Comptes Rendus de la Societe de Biologic, 1890, No. 39, and 

 1891, No. 11. 



2 C. S. Sherrington. 'Experiments on the escape of bacteria with the secretions.' 

 Eeprinted from The Journal of Pathology and Bacteriology. Edinburgh and London, 

 Young J. Pentland, Feb. 1893. 



3 The references to all the authorities here referred to will be found either in Sher- 

 rington's paper or at page 47 of Naunyn's Klinik der Cholelithiasis. Leipzig, 1892. 



