642 



VITAL ACTIONS OF THE LOWER FUNGI. 



Resistance 



against 



oxygen? 



Horvath's experiments give some support to this view. 

 But these experiments, and the control experiments 

 which have been since made, do not, as has been men- 

 tioned above (p. 535), yield any satisfactory results, 

 applicable to the continuous flowing movement of the 

 fluids of the body. 



The supposition has also been frequently expressed 

 that the bacteria which are able to live in the living 

 body are only those which find there a sufficient supply 

 of oxygen, and as Szpilmann had shown that anthrax 

 bacilli are not destroyed by the action of ozone, while 

 putrefactive bacilli are rapidly killed, there seemed to be 

 some ground for this view. But more accurate experi- 

 ments which have been made by Liborius,* as to the 

 requirement of oxygen by the pathogenic bacteria, have 

 shown that these are obligatory or facultative anaerobes, 

 and require much less oxygen than a large number of 

 saprophytes. On the contrary, a certain indifference 

 with regard to oxygen seems to be a necessary condi- 

 tion for the parasitic existence of the bacteria ; it is 

 only thus that they are able to develop a large amount 

 of vegetative energy in parts of the body in which the 

 tension of the oxygen is very low. 



Further, the view has been frequently expressed that 



against excre- ., ,. . , n . . ,1-11 ~ 



tion from the the living body tries to prevent the development of 

 bacteria by continually eliminating any organisms 

 which get into the blood stream by the kidneys, 

 and ultimately by other secretory organs, from which 

 it would follow that only those bacteria are capable of 

 growing in the body which can multiply in the material 

 present in it and at that temperature with such aa 

 amount of energy that the continued elimination of a 

 large number of the bacteria is provided for. But by 

 the researches of Wyssokowitsch* it has been definitely- 

 shown that the normal living body does not excrete 

 saprophytic and pathogenic bacteria. This only takes 

 place when pathogenic bacteria have become deposited 

 and have grown in a secretory organ, and when, in con- 

 sequence of this growth, injury to the tissue of the 



* Ztitschr.f. Hygiene, vol. i., Part 1. 



Resistance 



