SUPPURA TION. 253 



tufts of the kidneys sometimes are full of cocci, and 

 become the centres of small abscesses. 



The coccus is almost equally pathogenic for man, 

 though the fatal outcome is much more rare. It enters 

 the system through scratches, punctures, or abrasions, 

 and when virulent generally causes an abscess, as various 

 experimenters who inoculated themselves have discov- 

 ered to their cost. Garre applied the organism in pure 

 culture to the uninjured skin of his arm, and in four 

 days developed a large carbuncle with a surrounding 

 zone of furuncles. Bockhart suspended a small portion 

 of an agar-agar culture in salt-solution, and scratched it 

 gently into the deeper layers of the skin with his finger- 

 nail ; a furuncle developed. Bumm injected the coccus 

 suspended in salt-solution beneath his skin and that of sev- 

 eral other persons, and produced an abscess in every case. 



The Staphylococcus aureus is not only found in the 

 great majority of furuncles, carbuncles, abscesses, and 

 other inflammatory diseases of the surface of the body, 

 but also plays an important role in a number of deeply- 

 seated diseases of the internal organs. Becker and others 

 obtained it from the pus of osteomyelitis, demonstrating 

 that if, after fracturing or crushing a bone, the staphylo- 

 coccus was injected into the circulation, osteomyelitis 

 would result. Numerous bacteriologists have demon- 

 strated its presence in ulcerative endocarditis. Rodet 

 has been able to produce osteomyelitis without previ- 

 ous injury to the bones ; Rosenbach was able to produce 

 ulcerative endocarditis by injecting some of the staphy- 

 lococci into the circulation in animals whose cardiac 

 valves had been injured by a sound passed into the 

 carotid artery ; and Ribbert has shown that the injection 

 of cultures of the organism may cause the valvular lesion 

 without the preceding injury. 



The Staphylococcus aureus is an easy organism to ob- 

 tain, and can be secured by plating out a drop of pus in 

 gelatin or in agar-agar. Such a preparation, however, 

 generally does not contain the Staphylococcus aureus 

 alone, but shows colonies of the Staphylococcus albus as 



