20 INFECTION AND IMMUNITY 



monly contracted through accidental wounds. In 

 countries where it prevails, it has been observed that 

 the natives, who do not wear shoes and stockings, are 

 much more liable to infection than Europeans, and it 

 seems to be well established that infection may occur 

 through insignificant wounds, such as scratches or 

 abrasions of exposed parts of the body. We have 

 also satisfactory evidence that tuberculosis may be 

 transmitted to man by the accidental inoculation of 

 an open wound. Malignant pustule, or anthrax, is 

 communicated in the same way, and it sometimes 

 happens that the inoculation is effected by flies which 

 have been in contact with the infectious material 

 escaping from the body of an animal having the dis- 

 ease or recently dead as a result of it. 



It is well known that surgeons when operating upon 

 an infected wound and pathologists when performing 

 autopsies, in certain cases, are liable to a severe and 

 sometimes fatal attack of "blood-poisoning" as a 

 result of infection through a slight scratch or abra- 

 sion upon the hand, or through an accidental punc- 

 ture made by a surgical needle. The germ which is 

 most frequently concerned in this blood-poisoning, or 

 septicaemia, is well known and is the usual cause of 

 puerperal fever, erysipelas, and a considerable propor- 

 tion of the cases of peritonitis. It is, therefore, in 

 treating or making autopsies upon cases of this nature 



