37 



"zymoid" substance whose presence (i) conferred 

 upon pus and exudate their infectious character and (2) 

 converted wound secretions into favorable soil for organ- 

 isms. He believed, however, that bacteria might be the 

 means for transporting and multiplying his hypothetical 

 zymoid, and in this capacity might be, probably are, the 

 carriers and originators of specific pathological processes. 

 Since the publication of this work (1874), Billroth has 

 materially modified certain of his conclusions. 



From these investigations it was generally concluded that 

 septic infection was due to an unorganized though per- 

 haps organic substance ; that the presence of bacteria 

 was an epiphenomenon a sequence, not a cause ; that 

 their deleterious agency, if any, consisted simply in the 

 transfer of unorganized infectious matters from one part 

 of the body to other portions, perhaps from one individ- 

 ual to another. 



But there soon appeared from various sources, notably 

 Koch and Pasteur, investigations more or less incom- 

 patible with these views. Pasteur found that in the ser- 

 ous sacs, muscles, liver, and spleen of a septically infected 

 animal there are always present microscopic organisms 

 (microbe septique\ although the blood may be until 

 death free from them. Inoculation with a drop of peri- 

 toneal serum, or a piece of muscle from an animal dead 

 of sepsis, induces, in a second animal, all the appearances, 

 ante- and post-mortem, of the original disease ; while a 

 drop of blood from the heart-cavity (proven microscopic- 

 ally to contain no septic vibrios) is, on the contrary, 

 innocuous. Pasteur cultivated his vibrio septique in 

 various fluids, such as solution of beef extract, in the 

 manner already described ; and found that a drop of 

 fluid from the last flask, containing presumably none of 

 the original unorganized septic matters, but crowded 

 with the vibrios, produced the original septic disease. 

 In the tissues of infected animals Pasteur was unable to 

 find any unorganized substance capable of inducing sep- 

 sis, as had been affirmed by Panum, but he found that a 

 putrid fluid, a few drops of which induced sepsis and 



