OBJECTIONS TO THE NEW DOCTRINE 249 



organisms in purulent nephritis in 1865; Rindfleisch in 

 pyemia in 1866; von Recklinghausen and Waldeyer 

 in metastatic abscesses in 1865. In 1872 Klebs had 

 shown how, starting from a wound, bacteria could pene- 

 trate the lymphatics or the veins by means of the in- 

 terstices of the connective tissue, and from there infect 

 the thrombi of the blood vessels or produce abscesses. 

 Then came the discovery of bacteria in erysipelas, 

 hospital gangrene, puerperal fever, diphtheria and other 

 diseases. 



But on all these points there was still more legitimate 

 cause for doubt than in the case of anthrax, and far 

 from corroborating each other these different discov- 

 eries succeeded in being almost contradictory. Instead 

 of bringing order, they seemed to produce confusion. For 

 example, contrary to what appeared logical, pus of the 

 same nature and origin contained very different organ- 

 isms and, on the contrary, forms almost indistinguishable 

 occurred in very distinct diseases such as smallpox, 

 diphtheria and cholera. In a general way the organ- 

 isms discovered in these diseases bore a striking resem- 

 blance to each other and could scarcely be said to have 

 any special physiognomy, except the anthrax bacter- 

 idium, on account of its size and because it was found 

 in the blood, and the spirillum of recurrent fever, dis- 

 covered in 1873 by Obermeier, which also passes into 

 the blood when the fever is at its height, and the spiral 

 form of which serves to distinguish it. All the other 

 organisms were alike in form, size and properties, and 

 this formed an argument of which those who resisted 

 the contagion of the new ideas were not slow to avail 

 themselves. 



Finally, to complete the perplexity of investigators, 

 bacteria were not found in some diseases which were 

 clearly of a contagious nature. After having set up 



