35 



tion, that not one only, but various putrid products, aris- 

 ing at different periods of the process, possess septic 

 properties. Bergmann and Schmiedeberg obtained from 

 putrefying beer-yeast a crystalline substance, melting on 

 contact with air and charring under heat, which induced 

 in dogs the clinical and anatomical appearances of sep- 

 sis. This they termed sulphate of sepsin. Zuelzer and 

 Sonnenschein isolated a similar compound. Hiller and 

 Mikulicz demonstrated that the septic agent of putrid 

 materials could be extracted and retained by glycerine, 

 and in so far was analogous to the active ingredient of 

 vaccine lymph, to pepsin, ptyalin, etc. 



It was thus established, and so remains, that the clini- 

 cal and anatomical features of septicaemia could be in- 

 duced by unorganized substances obtained from the 

 products of putrefaction. Yet in these cases two char- 

 acteristics frequently observed in the septic infection of 

 human subjects were often conspicuously absent the 

 stage of incubation and the infectiousness of the septic 

 blood and tissues. Panum noted particularly that the 

 influence of his boiled putrid materials became manifest 

 in fifteen minutes to two hours, and attained its acme 

 in four to eight hours. Meanwhile a new path of inves- 

 tigation had been opened by Pasteur's demonstration 

 that the putrefaction of animal tissues is a phenomenon 

 incident to the vital activity of certain bacteria facts 

 established incontestably by the researches of Pasteur, 

 Tyndall, Traube, Brefeld, and their pupils. The deter- 

 mination of the relation between the bacteria and the 

 diseases caused by the putrid products of their vital 

 action soon became the object of most patient and care- 

 ful investigation. Coze and Feltz found vibrios intra 

 vitam in the blood of animals infected with putrid fluids ; 

 and similar organisms post-mortem in the blood of a 

 patient dead of putrid infection. With this blood they 

 inoculated a rabbit, which then exhibited septic symp- 

 toms, and whose blood was found to contain similar 

 vibrios. Rindfleisch found colonies of bacteria in the 

 heart-muscle from a case of pyaemia ; Recklinghausen 



