68 BACTERIA IN THE BLOOD. 



some simple purgative, which excites the glands to 

 pour out secretion, and so the passage is cleared from 

 the stomach downwards. 



In many very different forms of disease these germs 

 of bacteria, and probably of many fungi, are to be dis- 

 covered in the fluids of the body, but the evidence 

 yet adduced does not establish any connection be- 

 tween the germs and the morbid process. In Plate 

 IV. these minute organisms are represented in the 

 contents of the alimentary canal, and in the interior 

 of the epithelial cells of the mucous membrane of the 

 intestine in cholera. In the contents of the blood- 

 vessels of the same disease, and in the blood taken 

 almost immediately after death from the vessels of 

 animals destroyed by cattle plague and other fevers, 

 similar bodies have been found, Plate III, figs. 15, 

 1 6, 21, though probably not of exactly the same kind 

 in every case, Figs. 25, 26, 27. 



As has been already stated, germs apparently 

 of the same nature as those figured in Figs. 23 and 

 24 from cholera, are invariably to be found in the 

 old epithelial cells of the mouth of healthy persons, 

 and not rarely in those from many other surfaces. In 

 the intestinal contents in various slight derangements, 

 they are common enough, so that we cannot but con- 

 clude that their presence is due rather to alterations 

 in the fluids consequent tipon morbid changes, than that 

 they are themselves the cause of the disease. They 

 follow the morbid change instead of preceding it. 



