THE ALIMENTARY CANAL AS A SOURCE OF CONTAGION 33 



whether these, as a whole, had any destructive influence upon the blood- 

 corpuscles. The culture-liquid was diffusely turbid, and remained so on 

 removal from the incubator owing to several of the forms being motile. 



The anaerobic growth, on the contrary, seemed to be pure. The 

 glucose-beef-tea on which it had been sown was heated up to 80° C. for 

 twenty minutes, so as to destroy the non-sporing organisms. The 

 inoculated tubes were thereafter placed in the incubator where their 

 contents germinated with much vigour. Within five hours the contents 

 were evolving gas, and by the end of twenty-four hours they were quite 

 turbid. So copious was the liberated gas, that the caoutchouc caps with 

 which the mouths of the tubes had been covered were tightly distended. 

 Some hours after removal from the incubator, this anaerobic culture 

 began to settle down in the shape of an obtuse cone, the apex of the 

 cone projecting above into the clear culture liquid. It was easily 

 disturbed, however, and the liquid again rendered universally turbid. 

 The aerobic culture gave an alkaline reaction, the anaerobic was power- 

 fully acid. The growth was allowed to proceed in each case for 

 forty-eight hours. 



On December 26th, 1903, an admixture of each with freshly drawn 

 human blood was effected, in the proportion of 10 parts of blood to i of 

 culture. The mixture was made in a small sterile tube with the aid of 

 a glass rod, and thereafter aspirated into the bulb of a pipette ; the ends 

 of the pipette were sealed off and the tube placed in the incubator at 38° 

 C. for four hours. 



A control experiment was made with the same glucose-beef-tea and 

 blood, but without organism, and treated exactly in the same fashion. 



After four hours incubation the coloured blood-corpuscles in the 

 control had fallen down to the most dependent part of the tube, while 

 the surrounding medium was clear and unstained. The corpuscles were 

 found to have undergone very little change. They were crenated, 

 but yellowish-orange in colour, and in no wise exhibited signs of 

 disintegration. 



The mixture with the aerobic culture had preserved its colour fairly 

 well, and on microscopic examination the coloured blood-coupuscles 

 were found in a state of perfect preservation ; they were not even 

 crenated ; the colourless, also, were little altered. As might be expected 

 the organisms present were various. 



(33) D 



