37 8 PATHOGENIC BACTERIA. 



either excised or burned out, this treatment would not 

 save the animal unless the operation were performed 

 within an hour after the inoculation. 



Some incline to the view that the toxin is a ferment, 

 and the experiments of Nocard, quoted before the Acad- 

 emie de Medecine, October 22, 1895, might be adduced 

 in support of the theory. He says: "Take three sheep 

 with normal tails, and insert under the skin at the end 

 of each tail a splinter of wood covered with the dried 

 spores of the tetanus bacillus; watch these animals care- 

 fully for the first symptoms of tetanus, then amputate the 

 tails of two of them 20 cm. above the point of inocula- 

 tion, . . . the three animals succumb to the disease with- 

 out showing any sensible difference. ' ' 



The circulating blood of diseased animals is fatal to 

 susceptible animals because of the toxin which it con- 

 tains; and the fact that the urine is also toxic to mice 

 proves that the toxin is excreted by the kidneys. 



From pure cultures of tetanus bacilli grown in various 

 media, and from the blood and tissues of animals affected 

 with the disease, Brieger succeeded in separating two 

 alkaloidal substances — " tetanin " and " tetano- toxin," 

 both very poisonous and productive of tonic convulsions; 

 and Brieger and Frankel later isolated an extremely poi- 

 sonous toxalbumin. 



The pathology of the disease is of much interest be- 

 cause of its purely toxic nature. There is generally a 

 small wound with a slight amount of suppuration. At 

 the autopsy the organs of the body are normal in appear- 

 ance, except the nervous system, which bears the great- 

 est insult. It, however, shows little else than congestion 

 either macroscopically or microscopically. 



An interesting fact contributed to our knowledge of 

 the disease has been presented by Vaillard and Rouget, 

 who found that if the tetanus bacilli were introduced 

 into the body freed from their poison, they were unable 

 to produce any signs of disease because of the prompt- 

 ness with which the phagocytes took them up. If, how- 



