324 TEXT-BOOK OF BACTERIOLOGY. 



pigs, and rabbits. Subcutaneous application may cause the forma- 

 tion of abscesses which subsequently heal or may lead to general 

 sickness and even death. Injections into the abdominal cavity may 

 give rise to severe phlegmonous suppurations. The direct intro- 

 duction of the cocci into the blood-vessels is still more efficient, and 

 this kind of transmission is the most remarkable in its consequences. 

 The cocci can be found in the blood as well as in all organs, though 

 in small numbers and only demonstrable by culture. They also 

 cause purulent inflammations of the joints, and especially small 

 metastatic abscesses in the heart muscle and the kidneys. In the 

 latter, bean-sized, whitish foci or extensive pyramidal-shaped in- 

 farctions are met with, their origin being due to the displacement 

 of large portions of the cortical substance. The cocci stop up the 

 capillaries and even the smaller arteries, and thus give rise to con- 

 siderable disturbances. They are also found in the cells. 



The experiments of Orth, Wyssokowitsch and Ribbert are very 

 striking. The first two ascertained that, after injuring an ani- 

 mal's cardiac valves by catheterization from the right carotid (ac- 

 cording to O. Rosenbach's method) and introducing the Staph. au- 

 reus into tlie blood-current, a typical endocarditis ulcerosa appears 

 at the injured places. Ribbert discovered that the same result may 

 be obtained without preparing the valves, by simply taking the 

 material for transmission from potato cultures of the aureus. The 

 thicker particles of this inoculating substance are swept along by 

 the blood-current and brought into the cardiac muscle and depos- 

 ited especially on the valves, where they cause inflammatory 

 changes. 



This staphylococcus having been demonstrated by culture in 

 cases of spontaneous endocarditis ulcerosa and even in verrucosa, it 

 maj r be regarded as a cause of this disease, although it should not 

 be forgotten that we have become acquainted with another exciter 

 of inflammation in FraenkePs pneumonia bacterium which also not 

 uncommonly takes part in the development of endocarditis. It 

 may be well then not to regard the latter, with Weichselbaum, as 

 a process due to one cause, but to consider it an event occasioned 

 by one or another micro-organism possessing the power and ability 

 of infecting and inflaming the delicate covering of the cardiac 

 valves. 



On introducing the Staphylococcus aureus into the blood-vessels 

 of an animal, a subcutaneous fracture or contusion of a long bone 

 having previously been inflicted, there will frequently occur in 

 these " predisposed " places, symptoms of osteomyelitis sufficiently 

 severe to cause death. This fact is significant, since Becker, as 



