108 PATHOLOGY. 



On post mortem examination there is found at the place of 

 injection or inoculation slight ceclema of the subcutaneous cel- 

 lular tissue. This, however, is often absent, and the internal 

 organs, with the exception of a considerable swelling of the 

 spleen, appear quite unaltered. One-tenth of a drop of the 

 fluid of the subcutaneous cederaa, or of blood from the iieart of 

 such animal, inoculated into another mouse, is sufficient to cause 

 exactly the same symptoms, and death in about fifty hours. 

 From this second animal a third may be injected, and so on 

 through as many successive animals as one pleases. 



Koch says that the certainty with which the infective material 

 can be carried from one mouse to another is greater than in 

 anthrax, as in tlie latter the material for inoculation must be 

 taken from the spleen, because the blood of mice affected with 

 anthrax often contains very few bacilli ; but in septicasmia, pro- 

 duced by putrefying blood, it is a matter of indifference from 

 which organ the material for inoculation is taken, and even the 

 smallest quantity will produce an effect with certainty. 



The blood of mice which became ill after intravenous injec- 

 tion of one to ten drops of putrefying blood was found to 

 contain, as a rule, different varieties of bacteria in small 

 numbers, micrococci, and large and small bacilli. If, however, 

 the animals died after inoculation with putrefying or septicsemic 

 blood, small bacilli alone appeared. This result was invariable, 

 and the bacilli were in large numbers. 



These bacilli are often attached to each other in septica?mic 

 blood in pairs, either in straight lines or forming an obtuse 

 angle. Chains of three or four bacilli also occur, but they are 

 rare. They show at first sight a great resemblance to small 

 needle-like crystals, but that they are undoubtedly vegetable 

 bodies is evident, for when sciDticffimic blood is kept in an incu- 

 bation apparatus, these grow in a manner similar to the bacilli 

 of anthrax, not forming long threads like the latter, but dense 

 masses, which consist of isoLated bacilli sometimes containing- 

 spores. They are extremely difficult to see, and it is necessary 

 to stain them with methylaniline violet or blue. The best way 

 to do this is to dry the fluid containing them on a glass slide, stain 

 with methylaniline, and mount the specimen in Canada balsam. 



The relation of these bacilli to white corj)uscles of the blood 

 is peculiar. They penetrate into these and multiply in their 



