42 



inated septicaemia in man, have been induced in the 

 mouse and rabbit by inoculation with animal tissues in 

 various stages of putrefaction ; that the resulting infection 

 is just as certain if the putrid substances be previously 

 boiled and thereby deprived of living organisms (Pammi, 

 Bergmann, Rosenberger). On the other hand, it is cer- 

 tain that per se innocuous culture fluids infusions of 

 beef, etc. acquire, after inoculation with minute quan- 

 tities of infected blood or tissue, the same septic proper- 

 ties, provided such blood or tissue contain living bac- 

 teria ; it is further certain that this multiplication of the 

 septic substance in such liquid is a concomitant of the 

 vital action of the organisms therein contained (Pasteur, 

 Koch, Rosenberger) ; it is further demonstrated that 

 these organisms can and do, not alone multiply the sep- 

 tic material, but when isolated by successive cultures 

 from all the accompanying animal tissues, induce, inde- 

 pendently, fatal infectious disease (Pasteur, Koch, Luf- 

 fler, Gaffky, Rosenberger). 



The same principle vital activity of bacteria per- 

 vades all these phenomena ; for the artificial induction of 

 septic diseases has been, in all these experiments, origin- 

 ally accomplished by the incorporation into the animal 

 of putrid tissues, with or without bacteria. Now, since 

 putrefaction must be regarded, in the present state of our 

 knowledge, as impossible without the presence of these 

 organisms, it is evident that sepsis, putrid infection, was 

 in every case due, directly or indirectly, to the action of 

 bacteria ; since even the boiled substances used by 

 Panum and Rosenberger, and the sepsin obtained from 

 rotten yeast by Bergmann and Schmiedeberg, had ac- 

 quired their septic properties through putrefaction, i.e., 

 through the action of bacteria. Hence we are logically 

 driven, by all this work, to the belief that septicaemia im- 

 plies, the introduction into the animal either of living bac- 

 teria, or of a substance which has acquired noxious prop- 

 erties through previous vital activity of these organisms. 



More recent experiments have demonstrated, however, 

 that the etiology of the group of clinical and anatomical 



