BACILLUS SEPTICUS AGRIGENUS. 319 



ultimately there are no distinct zones to be seen ; on the 

 other hand, the granular appearance becomes more 

 marked ; the circular outline for the most part remains. 

 In puncture cultivations a thin and but slightly charac- 

 teristic layer is formed. Mice inoculated with small 

 quantities of the cultivations die after 12 to 22 hours, as 

 also do field mice ; rabbits die after inoculation on the 

 car in from 24 to 36 hours. On post-mortem examina- Action on 



. _ . , ..,. animals. 



tion no special abnormalities are found; the bacilli 

 above described are present in the blood of the heart 

 and in the capillaries of all the organs, but always in 

 decidedly smaller numbers than in the two diseases just 

 described. Farther, the bacilli show a special tendency 

 to adhere to the blood corpuscles ; the border of a blood 

 corpuscle frequently has two, three, or four bacilli 

 attached to it; but the bacteria do not seem to penetrate 

 into the interior of the cells. 



A number of short, fine bacteria, which are similar to 

 the three species of bacilli just described, have been sembiing the 

 observed by various authors in the deposit on the human S en?in'the e 



tongue, in the secretions of the mouth, and in the 

 sputum. In the Hygienic Institute in Gottingen, Krei- 

 bohm found two bacteria which were chiefly distinguished 

 from the above mentioned forms by the fact that they 

 could not be cultivated on any of the ordinary artificial 

 substrata. 



The first species was obtained on two occasions from First species. 

 the deposit on the tongue by the inoculation of some 

 mice with this deposit; the animals died after a few 

 days, and large numbers of these bacilli were found in 

 the blood. The rods resemble very closely those of 

 rabbit septicaemia, but they are somewhat longer and 

 more pointed at the ends; they do not show any 

 constriction in the middle, but take up the colouring 

 matter only at the poles, leaving a clear zone in the 

 middle. In the blood they occur singly or in small 

 groups, seldom in the form of threads composed of two 



