DESCRIPTIONS OF PATHOGENIC BACTERIA. 153 



infection of white mice with anthrax and young 

 rabbits with chicken cholera. The bacteria 

 multiply and overgrow the organs, generating 

 during their growth poisons or toxins which 

 cause the illness of the host, and, hand in 

 hand with this multiplication, the older germi 

 die off and also act injuriously for the reason 

 that they are so much foreign protoplasm. 

 In the course of multiplication the bacteria 

 attack the proteid of the body and split off 

 from it poisons, a process which can take place 

 outside as well as inside the bacterial cells. 

 This chemical action is at first a pure split- 

 ting, an anaerobic process. The bacteria are 

 also able to consume the oxygen in the blood 

 or tissue juices, and, in return, generate car- 

 bonic acid, so that an overloading of the blood 

 with carbonic acid results in a development 

 of heat, the latter phenomenon expressing 

 itself in a rise of temperature, that is, in fever 

 (C. Roser). But the poisons produced by the 

 bacteria are also able to stimulate the heat- 

 regulating centres and so act in a more typi- 

 cal manner upon the temperature. Generally 

 all these processes or several of them at least 

 concur in bringing about the final result, 

 namely, the process and symptoms of disease ; 

 and for this reason we witness individual de- 

 partures from the traditional disease-schema. 



