BACTERIA IN INFECTIOUS DISEASES. 597 



The writer repeated their experiments the following year (1880) in the vicin- 

 ity of New Orleans, and reported as follows : 



"Among 1 the organisms found upon the surface of swamp mud near 

 New Orleans, and in the gutters within the city limits, are some which 

 closely resemble, and perhaps are identical with, the Bacillus malarias of 

 Klebs and Tommasi-Crudeli; but there is no satisfactory evidence that these 

 or any of the other bacterial organisms found in such situations, when in- 

 jected beneath the skin of a rabbit, give rise to a malarial fever corre- 

 sponding with the ordinary paludal fevers to which man is subject. 



" The evidence upon which Klebs and Tommasi-Crudeli have based their 

 claim of the discovery of a Bacillus malarise cannot be accepted as sufficient; 

 (a) because in their experiments and in my own the temperature curve in 

 the rabbits experimented upon has in no case exhibited a marked and dis- 

 tinctive paroxysmal character ; (6) because healthy rabbits sometimes exhi- 

 bit diurnal variations of temperature (resulting apparently from changes in 

 the external temperature) as marked as those shown in their charts ; (c) be- 

 cause changes in the spleen such as they describe are not evidence of death 

 from malarial fever, inasmuch as similar changes occur in the spleens of 

 rabbits dead from septicaemia produced by the subcutaneous injection of 

 human saliva; (d) because the presence of dark-colored pigment in the 

 spleen of a rabbit cannot be taken as evidence of death from malarial fever, 

 inasmuch as this is frequently found in the spleens of septicaemic rabbits." 



Later researches have also failed to confirm the supposed discovery of 

 Klebs and Tommasi-Crudeli, and it is now generally admitted that there is 

 no satisfactory evidence in favor of the view that microorganisms of this 

 class are concerned in the etiology of the malarial fevers. On the other 

 hand, we have now very extended observations which indicate that the blood 

 parasite discovered by Laveran (1881) in the blood of patients suffering from 

 various forms of malarial fever bears an etiological relation to fevers of this 

 class. This haematozodn belongs to quite a different class of microorgan- 

 isms. It was first described by Laveran as the Oscillaria malariee, but is 

 more frequently spoken of at present as the Plasmodium malarias. 



MALTA FEVER. 



In twelve out of thirteen cases of "Malta fever "Bruce (1892) found a 

 micrococcus which he believes to be the cause of this fever. See Micrococ- 

 cus of Bruce (No. 179). 



MALIGNANT CEDEMA. 



See Bacillus oedematis maligni (No. 186). 



MASTITIS. 



In ten cases of puerperal mastitis Bumm (1886) found Staphy- 

 lococcus pyogenes aureus in seven and Streptococcus pyogenes in 

 three. In a case reported by Sarpert (1894) diplococci were found 

 corresponding in their morphological characters with the gonococcus 

 the patient was suffering from gonorrhoea. 



MASTITIS IN COWS. 



Bovine mastitis is usually due to infection by streptococci, which are not 

 always the same, although possibly varieties of the same species. See Strep- 

 tococcus of Nocard and Mollereau (No. 31), Micrococcus of Kitt (No. 21), 

 Streptococcus agalactia; coiitagiosae (No. 45). Streptococcus mastitis spor- 

 adise (No. 45). See also Bacilli of G-uillebeau (No. 180). 



