xvn] SEPTIC AND PATHOGENIC ORGANISMS. 225 



If an infusion is made as above, and after fifteen minutes 

 it is filtered and then subjected to boiling for ^ to i minute, 

 it will be found to have become absolutely non-poisonous, 

 but not sterile : placing it in the incubator after twenty-four to 

 forty-eight hours, vast numbers of the jequirity bacillus are 

 found in it. But no amount of this fluid is capable of 

 producing the slightest symptom of ophthalmia. 



A large per-centage of the rabbits, whose conjunctiva has 

 been inoculated with the fresh unboiled poisonous infusion, 

 die after several, three to eight, days. The eyeballs and 

 eyelids are intensely inflamed, as stated above, the skin and 

 subcutaneous tissue of the face, neck, chest, and even 

 abdomen, is found enormously cedematous, the pericar- 

 dium, pleura, lungs, and peritoneum very much inflamed, 

 their cavities filled with a large quantity of exudation. 

 The exudations of the conjunctiva, pericardium, peri- 

 toneum, the cedematous skin and subcutaneous tissues contain 

 no infective property, and as a rule no bacilli or spores of 

 any kind, if examined in the living animal or immediately 

 after death. 



There is one point which requires careful consideration ; 

 it is this : Sattler states that he has cultivated the bacillus, 

 taken from a poisonous jequirity infusion, through several 

 successive generations on solid material, and with the new 

 cultures he was able to produce the jequirity ophthalmia. 

 I have no doubt whatever that this is really the case, but it 

 bears an interpretation different from the one Sattler gave 

 it. Sattler, and most pathologists, would, of course, say this : 

 if any micro-organism taken from a soil that possesses 

 infective properties be carried through many successive 

 artificial cultivations, all accidentally adhering matter would 

 hereby become so diluted that it may be considered as 

 practically lost ; that is to say, the organisms of the further 



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