BACILLUS PROTEUS VULGARIS. 475 



cause of death in cases in which considerable quantities 

 are injected into the peritoneal cavity or blood-vessels. 

 The bacilli do not seem able to multiply in the animal 

 body in health, but can do so when there has been pre- 

 vious injury to its tissues or when associated with patho- 

 genic bacteria. In such cases, if it be enabled to grow 

 in considerable quantity, its toxin may cause pronounced 

 symptoms. By various observers the proteus has been 

 secured in culture from cases of wound and puerperal in- 

 fections, purulent peritonitis, endometritis, and pleurisy. 

 When the local lesion in which it grows is small, as in 

 endometritis, the danger of toxemia is slight, but when 

 spread over large areas, as the peritoneum, may prove 

 serious. 



It is quite probable that in some of the cases in which 

 blood-infection with the proteus has been found after 

 death it did not exist previously, as the researches of 

 Bordoni-Uffreduzzi have shown that the proteus quite 

 regularly enters the tissues after death. 



While thus apparently unable to keep up an indepen- 

 dent existence in the tissues during life, and important in 

 the body only in conjunction with other bacteria, the 

 proteus seems able to grow abundantly in urine and to 

 produce primary inflammation of the bladder when in- 

 troduced spontaneously or experimentally into that viscus. 

 The inflammatory process may extend from the bladder 

 to the kidney, and so prove quite serious. 



The Bacillus proteus has also been found in acute in- 

 fectious jaundice and in acute febrile icterus, or Weil's 

 disease. 



