592 PATHOGENIC BACTERIA. 



tains gas-bubbles and is sometimes frothy. Occasionally 

 the patients recover, especially when the infected part is 

 susceptible of amputation, but death is a more common 

 outcome. After death the body begins to swell almost 

 immediately; it may attain twice its normal size and be 

 unrecognizable. Upon palpation a peculiar crepitation 

 can be felt in the subcutaneous tissue nearly everywhere, 

 and the presence of gas in the blood-vessels is easy of 

 demonstration. The gas is inflammable, and as the bub- 

 bles ignite explosive sounds are heard. 



At the autopsy the gas-bubbles are found in most of 

 the internal organs, sometimes so numerously as to justify 

 the German term " Schaumorgane " (frothy-organs). 

 The liver especially is apt to show this frothy con- 

 dition. When the tissues from such a case are hardened 

 and examined microscopically it is found that the bub- 

 bles appear as open spaces in the tissue, the "borders of 

 which are lined with large numbers of the gas bacillus. 

 There are also clumps of bacilli without gas-bubbles, but 

 surrounded by tissue, whose nuclei show a disposition to 

 fragment or disappear, and whose cells and fibers show 

 signs of disintegration and fatty change. In discussing 

 these changes Ernst 1 concluded that they were ante- 

 mortem and due to the irritation caused by the bacillus. 

 The gas-production he regarded as postmortem. 



In the internal organs the bacillus is usually found in 

 pure culture, but in the wound it is generally mixed with 

 other bacteria. On this account it is difficult to estimate 

 just how much of the damage before death is the result 

 of the activity of the gas bacillus. That gas-production 

 after death has nothing to do with pathogenesis during 

 life is shown by injecting into the ear-vein of a rabbit 

 a liquid culture of the gas bacillus, allowing about five 

 minutes' time for the distribution of the bacilli through- 

 out the circulation, and then killing the rabbit. In a few 

 hours the rabbit will swell and his organs and tissues 

 will be riddled with the gas-bubbles. 



1 Virchow's Archiv, Bd. 133, Heft ii. 



