142 MICRO-ORGANISMS AND DISEASE. [CHAP. 



cavity, and the peritoneum of all parts is highly inflamed. 

 Bacilli are present in it in enormous numbers, many of them 

 containing spores. The blood of the heart does not contain 

 bacilli immediately after death, but has them some hours 

 after. 



The bacilli in question are about 0*003 to 0-005 mm. long 

 and a little over o'ooi mm. thick ; they are rounded at their 

 ends ; they form chains of two and more, and these chains 

 are straight or broken. They also form leptothrix, straight, 

 or more commonly curved. The bacilli have been artificially 

 cultivated by Pasteur 1 in blood-serum and in neutral solution 

 of Liebig's meat-extract. Gaffky 2 grew them on potatoes at 

 38 C. The artificial culture is capable of producing the 

 malignant oedema, but it is always necessary to inject more 

 than minimal quantities. The bacilli grown in fluids outside 

 and inside the body form spores without free supply of air, 

 and are therefore anaerobic (Pasteur). 



In human faecal matter there are always present innumerable masses 

 of bacteria micrococci, single and dumb-bells, and in clumps of 

 zoogloea, bacterium termo, and various species of bacilli, varying in 

 thickness, length, and in motility, some being motile, others not. It 

 has been shown by Bienstock (Centralbl. f. med. Wiss. 1883, p. 949) 

 that a bacillus can be cultivated from normal human faeces which in 

 many respects resembles the bacillus of malignant oedema ; it produces 

 death in mice, but without the symptoms of malignant oedema. 



Professor Rossbach has maintained ( Centralblatt f. d. med. Wiss. 5, 

 1882) that when a solution of papayotin (the juice of Carica papaya] is 

 injected into the veins of a rabbit, the animal dies, and shortly after 

 death even so short a time as fifty minutes after the injection there 

 are found in the blood large numbers of bacteria. Dowdeswell, how- 

 ever, states (Practitioner, May, 1883) that solutions of papayotin con- 

 tain as a rule the spores of a motile bacillus which in all respects 

 resembles bacillus subtilis ; in artificial cultures in 10 per cent, solutions 

 of papayotin, in blood-serum, and in broth, these spores develop into 



1 Bull, de FAcad. 1877. 2 Mittheil. a. d. k. Gesundh. 1880. 



