34 QUATERCENTENARY STUDIES IN PATHOLOGY 



The anaerobic mixture, however, presented quite a different appear- 

 ance ; it had only a faint yellow tint. The organism had remained in a 

 state of purity, a rod of fairly large size, round at the ends, and 

 apparently motionless. The haemoglobin of the blood-corpuscles had 

 vanished entirely, and, judging from the yellow colour of the medium, 

 had been destroyed. The stroma of the corpuscles, however, remained, 

 so that mere shadows- of blood-corpuscles were left, with outlines so 

 indistinct that it required careful focussing to render them visible ; 

 they were not altered in shape. The leucocytes were preserved and 

 seemed to be quite free from any englobed bacilli. 



The experiment was performed on several occasions subsequently, 

 and always with the same result. 



What the rod-organism was which had these haemolytic properties I 

 have not as yet determined, but certain it is that its destructive action on 

 the haemoglobin was most striking. 



Whether it was foreign to the intestine may be questioned, indeed an 

 anaerobic rod morphologically very like it can be isolated from the 

 normal human dejecta, and which, apparently, has the same destructive 

 action upon the haemoglobin. 



The anaerobic intestinal bacteria seem to be much more powerful 

 haemolytics than the aerobic. The majority of the anaerobes causing the 

 above diseases of the sheep are extremely haemolytic, and the like 

 capacity possessed by the bacillus of tetanus, an organism evidently 

 closely related to those of the various sheep diseases referred to, lends 

 support to the notion of haemolysis being a very common attribute of 

 anaerobes as a class. 



The fact that in chlorosis and anaemic diseases generally, the 

 intestinal functions, as a rule, are in an abnormal state, evidently points 

 the lesson that the condition of that organ is intimately bound up with 

 the disordered state of the blood. The fact known to every practitioner 

 that iron fails to exert its beneficial influence in chlorosis unless the 

 intestine be got into proper working order, adds additional weight to the 

 supposed intestinal origin of this form of anaemia in particular, and of 

 progressive anaemias in general. 



Granted that it is the poison derived from a blood-destroying 

 organism contained in the intestine which is the cause of the haemolysis, 

 it may, as just said, be asked whether the organism is present normally 



(34) 



