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responsible for the proneness of diabetics to abscesses, 

 carbuncles, cataracts, gangrene of wounds, sloughing of 

 stumps even under most careful antiseptic dressings. These 

 spontaneous abscesses and carbuncles contain, when 

 freshly opened, micrococci in a high state of activity, as 

 shown by Kraske, Eberth, and Pasteur. A clinical ob- 

 servation in the history of diabetics, their susceptibility 

 to consumption, acquires peculiar significance in this 

 connection, since the presence of the bacillus tuberculosus 

 is now certainly a recognized anatomical characteristic, 

 whatever may be said of its etiological relation. Cheyne 

 refers to a weak, cachectic patient who had an abscess 

 wherever he received a bruise, and whose abscesses 

 always contain micrococci. Another question, formerly 

 much disputed, is the possibility of invasion of animal 

 issues by bacteria without previous solution of continuity. 

 The only possibility for discussion now remaining is as to 

 what shall be considered a solution of continuity ; for it is 

 definitely demonstrated that these organisms gain access 

 to the body without the existence of any wound or abrasion 

 discoverable upon the closest scrutiny. Trichina? force 

 their way from the intestine into the muscles : particles of 

 coal are conveyed, probably through the agency of white 

 corpuscles, into the parenchyma of the lungs, bronchial 

 glands, and even the liver ; it would seem a priori certain 

 that many bacteria, much smaller than these particles, 

 could also be received into the tissues. Ogston, using 

 the most improved technique, found micrococci in every 

 one of seventy previously unopened acute abscesses. 

 Cheyne reports a similar experience. Micrococci have 

 been repeatedly observed in the blood in spontaneous 

 pyaemia, osteomyelitis, etc., and Obermeier's spirilla in 

 recurrent fever patients, in cases where no lesion of. the 

 integuments was discoverable. But the question seems 

 to have been finally decided by experimental demonstra- 

 tion : Buchner has induced anthrax in animals by the 

 inhalation of powdered material containing the spores of 

 the bacilli. When we remember the endothelial nature 

 of the cells lining the pulmonary alveoli, we readily ap- 



