256 CONTAGIOUS DISEASES. 



to the description of the disease, its nature would be seen to 

 change too often. 



It has been ranked in the order of inflammatory diseases, but 

 it is quite different from them. In the inflammations, the cir- 

 culation becomes accelerated, and the plasticity of the blood 

 augments ; while in this affection, on the contrary, the pulse is 

 slow, the blood less plastic, there is a collapse of the vessels and 

 non-turgcscence ; consequently no analogy exists between these 

 two conditions. Not only is the blood less plastic, but greatly 

 altered in its physical properties and constituent principles. 

 It is black, no longer coagulates, assumes the consistence of 

 gooseberry -jelly ; in a word, has lost its vital and exciting pro- 

 perties, qualities indispensable to the free discharge of the 

 nutritive functions. It presents characters identical with those 

 of epidemic typhoid affections. Such at least is the opinion of 

 the Commission at Tarbes. 



The Germans, struck by the nervous symptoms which show 

 themselves in the later stages of the disease, have considered it 

 a nervous affection, and as it is nearly always accompanied by 

 alterations of the lymphatic system, they have called it lym- 

 phatic — nervous — cachexia. 



Others have looked upon it as a scrofulous, a nervous-phthisic, 

 or scorbutic affection. 



Its syphilitic nature has been admitted and rejected ; admitted 

 on account of the analogy of some local symptoms, and rejected 

 on account of the non-transmissibility of syphilis from man to 

 the horse by inoculation, and of the inefficacy of mercurial pre- 

 parations in its treatment. — (M. PiEYNAL, Traite de la Police 

 Sanitairc.) 



Thanhoffer says that the specific microbe is a micrococcus 

 found in the secretions of the vagina, in the semen, spino- 

 meningeal fluid, the roots of the spinal (ischiatic) nerves, and in 

 tlie blood. Hertwig says that it is transmissible by inoculation 

 with the genital mucous secretions, the blood and other fluids 

 appearing to be non-virulent, but further investigations into this 

 subject are required. 



SYMPTOJIS. 



As the disease manifests itself in two forms, benign and 

 malignant, I will first detail the symptoms of the benign form 

 in the female. 



