22 BACTERIOLOGY. 



to further investigations, and as the all-important ques- 

 tion was that concerning the relation of these micro- 

 scopic organisms to disease, attention naturally turned 

 into this channel of study. Even before the hypothesis 

 of spontaneous generation had received its final refutation 

 a number of observations of a most important nature had 

 been made by investigators who had long since ceased to 

 consider spontaneous generation as a tenable explanation 

 of the origin of the microscopic living particles. 



In the main, these studies had been conducted upon 

 wounds and the infections to which they are liable; in 

 fact, the evolution of our knowledge of bacteriology to 

 the point it now occupies is so intimately associated with 

 this particular line of investigation that a few historical 

 facts in connection with it may not be without interest. 



The observations of Rindfleisch, in 1866, in which 

 he describes the presence of small, pin-head points in 

 the myocardium and general musculature of individuals 

 that had died as a result of infected wounds, offer, 

 probably, the first reliable contribution to this subject. 

 He studied the tissue-changes round about these points 

 up to the stage of miliary abscess formation. He refers 

 to the organisms as '' vibrios." Almost simultaneously 

 Von Recklinghausen and Waldeyer described similar 

 changes that they had observed in pyaemia and occa- 

 sionally secondary to typhoid fever. Von Reckling- 

 liausen believed the granules seen in the abscess-points 

 to be micrococci and not tissue- detritus, and gave as 

 the reason that they were regular in size and shape, and 

 gave specific reactions with particular staining-fluids. 

 Birch-Hirschfeld was able to trace bacteria found in 

 the blood and organs to the wound as the point of en- 

 trance, and believed both the local and constitutional 



