PUTRID POISONS. 36S 



After this explanation, the idea that yeast reproduces itself, as 

 seeds reproduce seeds, cannot for a moment be entertained. 



From the foregoing facts it follows, that a body in the act of de- 

 composition (it may be named the exciter), added to a mixed fluid 

 in which its constituents are contained, can reproduce itself in that 

 fluid, exactly in the same manner as new yeast is produced 

 when yeast is added to saccharine liquids containing gluten. 

 This must be more certainly effected when the liquid acted upon 

 contains the body by the metamorphosis of which the exciter has 

 been originally formed. 



It is also obvious that if the exciter be able to impart its own 

 state of transformation to one only of the component parts of the 

 mixed liquid acted upon, its own reproduction may be the conse- 

 quence of the decomposition of this one body. 



This law may be applied to organic substances forming part 

 of the animal organism. We know that all the constituents of 

 these substances are formed from the blood, and that the blood 

 by its nature and constitution is the most complex of all existing 

 matters. 



Nature has adapted the blood for the reproduction of every 

 individual part of the organism ; its principal character consists 

 in its component parts being subordinate to every attraction. 

 These are in a perpetual state of change or transformation, which 

 is effected in the most various ways through the influence of the 

 different organs. 



The blood does not possess the power of causing transforma- 

 tions ; on the contrary, its principal character consists in its readily 

 suffering transformations ; and no other matter can be compared 

 with it in this respect. 



Now it is a well known fact, that when blood, cerebral sub- 

 stance, gall, pus, and other substances in a state of putrefaction, 

 are laid upon fresh wounds, vomiting, debility, and at length 

 death are occasioned. It is also well known that bodies in ana- 

 tomical rooms frequently pass into a state of decomposition ca- 

 pable of imparting itself to the living body, the smallest cut with 

 a knife which has been used in their dissection producing in these 

 cases dangerous consequences. 



The poison of bad sausages belongs to this class of noxioua 



