VIRULENT DISEASES. 195 



ing to the respective laws of their evolution and of the 

 decomposing influence which belongs to them. It is 

 by anaerobic organisms, in fact, that the putrefaction 

 of dead bodies is begun. They penetrate into the 

 organs and into the blood as soon as this liquid is de- 

 prived of oxygen ; and it is not long before this 

 happens, the oxygen fixed in the globules being soon 

 consumed. In the body of an animal which has 

 died of splenic fever, putrefaction is still more rapid, 

 because, through the action of the disease, the blood is 

 already in a great degree deprived of oxygen at the 

 time of death. Nothing is more striking than the rapid 

 inflation and almost immediate putrefaction of animals 

 which have succumbed to splenic fever. Of all the 

 vibrios ready to pass from the intestinal canal into the 

 network of mesenteric veins which surround the canal 

 those which seem to take the foremost place are the 

 septic vibrios. These specially merit the name of 

 vibrios of putrefaction, from the very putrid gases 

 which result from their action upon nitrogenous and 

 sulphurous substances. The others diffuse themselves 

 more or less slowly in the blood, but the septic vibrio 

 takes almost immediate possession of the dead body. 

 Already after twelve or fifteen hours, the blood of the 

 diseased animal, which at the time of its death and 

 during the first following hours contained exclusively 

 the parasite of splenic fever, harbours at one and 

 .the same time both the bacillus of splenic fever 



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