TO BE DUE TO SPECIFIC MICROORGANISMS. 521 



ERYTHEMA. 



Cordua (1885) obtained from a series of cases of an erysipelatpid skin 

 affection of the fingers and hands, which he identified as corresponding with 

 eiythema exudativum multiforme of Hebra, a micrococcus resembling 

 Staphylococcus pyogenes albus in its biological characters, but which he de- 

 scribes as being three to four times as large. Inoculations in animals were 

 without result, but two inoculations upon his own hand produced a dark-red 

 tumefaction in the vicinity of the point of inoculation resembling that in the 

 individuals from whom he obtained his cultures. 



In two cases of " polymorphous erythema " Haushalter (1887) isolated a 

 streptococcus which did not produce an erysipelatous inflammation when in- 

 oculated into the ear of rabbits, and which he supposed to be a different species 

 from the now better known Streptococcus pyogenes (?). In five cases of 

 erythema nodosum in children Demme obtained a bacillus which his in- 

 oculation experiments proved to be pathogenic, and which was perhaps con- 

 cerned in the etiology of the skin affection from which his cultures were ob- 

 tained (see Bacillus of Demme, No. 107). 



GRANULOMA FUNGOIDES (MYCOSIS FUNGOIDES). 



Rindfleisch (1885) and Auspitz (1885) report the presence of streptococci 

 in the capillary vessels of the papillary body and of the subcutaneous tissue 

 in the affected localities in cases of this disease. That the streptococcus 

 differs from Streptococcus pyogenes, as Auspitz supposes, has not been defi- 

 nitely established. 



HYDROPHOBIA. 



Notwithstanding the extended researches made, especially in Pasteur's 

 laboratory, the etiology of hydrophobia still remains unsettled. It has been 

 demonstrated by experiment that the virus of the disease is located in the 

 brain, spinal marrow, and nerves of animals which have succumbed to the 

 disease, as well as in the salivary secretions of rabid animals, and that the 

 disease may be transmitted by intravenous inoculation, or by introducing a 

 small quantity of virus beneath the dura mater, with greater certainty than 

 by subcutaneous inoculations. But the exact nature of this virus has not been 

 determined. The fact that a considerable interval elapses after inoculation 

 before the first symptoms are developed indicates that there is a multiplica- 

 tion of the virus in the body of the infected animal; and this is further 

 shown by the fact that after death the entire brain and spinal marrow of the 

 animal have a virulence equal to that of the material with which it was in- 

 oculated in the first instance. The writer's experiments (1887) show that this 

 virulence is neutralized by a temperature of 60 C. maintained for ten min- 

 utesa temperature which is fatal to all known pathogenic bacteria in the 

 absence of spores. But recent experiments show that certain toxic products 

 of bacterial growth are destroyed by the same temperature. We are, there- 

 fore, not justified in assuming that the morbid phenomena are directly due 

 to the presence of a living mici'oorganism ; and, indeed, it seems probable, 

 from what we already know, that the symptoms developed and the death of 

 the animal are due to the action of a potent chemical poison of the class 

 known as toxalbumins. But, if this is true, we have still to account for the 

 production of the toxic albuminoid substance, and, in the present state of 

 knowledge, have no other way to explain its increase in the body of the in- 

 fected animal than the supposition that a specific, living germ is present in 

 the virulent material, the introduction of which into the body of a suscep- 

 tible animal gives rise to morbid phenomena characterizing an attack of 

 rabies. 



Pasteur and his associates have thus far failed to demonstrate the pre- 

 sence of microorganisms in the virulent tissues of animals which have suc- 

 cumbed to an attack of rabies. Babes has obtained micrococci in cultures 



