47 



cessarily prove a causal relation of the organisms to the 

 suppurative process ; but the observation that a zooglcea 

 mass of micrococci is often the centre of an abscess ; 

 that indeed abscess-formation in all staged, from a simple 

 accumulation of straggling leucocytes to the fully devel- 

 oped destructive infiltration of tissue, has been observed 



Fig. 6. Incipient abscess formation around an embolus of micrococci ; heart 

 muscle in a case of endocarditis ulcerosa. X 100. (Copied from a photogram by 

 Koch.) 



around a nucleus consisting of a minute embolus com- 

 posed entirely of micrococci (Fig. 6) ; that the progres- 

 sive purulent infiltration of the surrounding tissue is pre- 

 ceded by an invasion of the same by micrococci can be 

 impartially and satisfactorily explained, in the present 

 state of knowledge, by no other hypothesis than that 



