THE LABORATORY OF THE ECOLE NORMALS. 281 



long flexible chaplets clustered together like tangled 

 strings of beads. 



At the post-mortem examination of this woman 

 large quantities of pus were found in the peritoneum 

 and the uterus. This pus was sown with all due pre- 

 caution. Some blood taken from the basilic and 

 femoral veins was likewise sown. It was everywhere 

 easy to recognise the long chaplets in little tangled 

 parcels, and always without admixture of other 

 organisms, except in the cultivation of the perito- 

 neal pus, which, besides the long strings of grains, 

 showed also the little pyogenic vibrios to which Pasteur 

 had already assigned the name of the pus organism. 



From the Maternity Hospital Pasteur went to the 

 Hopital Lariboisiere, where he had been informed 

 that another woman had just died of the same fever. 

 From a puncture in the peritoneum he collected some 

 pus which was found there in great abundance. He 

 sowed this, as well as some blood taken from a vein in 

 the arm. The culture of the pus furnished the long 

 strings of grains and the little pyogenic vibrio. The 

 culture of the blood exhibited only the long strings 

 quite pure. 



Pasteur made many other observations of the 

 same kind in cases of puerperal fever. He arrived at 

 the conclusion that, under the name of puerperal fever, 

 diseases of different symptoms were classed, but which 

 all appear to be the result of the invasion of common 



