CHAPTER LXIII 



THE MICROBE OF ERYSIPELAS 



THIS microbe is shown in Fig. 101. It belongs 

 in the Spherical Type. The germs are minute 

 balls, about the one-twenty-five thousandth part 

 of an inch in diameter. They grow in chains or 

 singly. 



Infection usually, if not always, takes place by 

 means of a wound slight abrasion of the skin 

 or more serious wound. The germ lives free in 

 the soil a soil microbe. Finding its way to 

 some break in the skin, the germ here grows, multi- 

 plies in great numbers, and generates the poison 

 peculiar to this disease. Entering the general cir- 

 culation, the poison causes fever, headache, nausea, 

 vomiting. 



Inflammatory eruptions appear on the skin 

 usually on the face. At first, a slight red pimple. 

 The pimple grows larger. The inflammation 

 spreads. Or, several pimples may appear, grow 

 larger, run together, and the inflammation spread 

 wider. 



The disease is very troublesome. It lasts about 

 a week. The inflammation then subsides. The 

 skin peels. The patient recovers. 



But little can be done by way of treatment ex- 



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