THE ALIMENTARY CANAL AS A SOURCE OF CONTAGION 37 



namely, that, for some reason, probably a defective condition of the 

 blood, a particular bacterial parasite is allowed to pass over from the 

 intestine into the blood, becomes dissolved in it, and thus has the toxines 

 set free which are the cause of the nervous phenomena. In severe fatal 

 instances of chorea minute abscesses have been found in the brain, and I 

 think that quite possibly these may have been due to the organism 

 having got into the blood in excessive quantity, so that the plasma has 

 failed to dissolve them. 



Then, again, may not Medullary Epilepsy be accounted for by a 

 collateral pathology? May not it also be intestinal in its point of origin? 



Ford Robertson {Brit. Med. Journal, 1901, IL, p. 1230; Ibid: 1903, 

 IL, p. 1065, Edin. Med. Journal, XIX., 1906, p. 218, Review of Neurology 

 and Psychiatry, May and July, 1903 — Reprint), insists upon the 

 paramount importance of the gastro-intestinal tract in relation to 

 insanity, and makes out that in general paralysis of the insane the 

 surface of the intestine is covered with a diphtheroid bacillus which 

 finds its way into the tissues. He even goes the length of asserting 

 that locomotor ataxia may be due to a similar cause. 



Cirrhosis of the Liver. 



It seems likely enough that Cirrhosis of the Liver may be accounted 

 for on a pathology of the same kind. A particular bacterium becomes 

 absorbed from the intestine, it is bacteriolysed within the portal blood, 

 its liberated toxines are anchored upon the liver substance and stimulate 

 this to the production of an excess of fibrous tissue. It is a remarkable 

 fact bearing upon this theory that not infrequently the minute branches 

 of the portal vein in cirrhosis contain organismal emboli. Quite possibly 

 these have accumulated shortly before death, and owing to the enfeebled 

 powers of the blood have remained undissolved. 



What the aetiology of the cirrhosis of the horse due to feeding it 

 upon lupines, or that of the cirrhosis of domestic animals said to be 

 so prevalent in New Zealand from feeding them upon ragwort {Senechio 

 Jacobed), * may be, I will not venture to broach for the present, but it 

 seems to me these two alleged causes of hepatic cirrhosis may come 

 to have important bearings upon the above theory. 



* (See Gilruth Report, New Zealand Department of Agriculture, Division of Veterinary 

 Science, 1902-3, p. 228; Ibid., Bulletin, No. 9; Ibid,, Report for 1905, p. 178). 



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