3 ARTIFICIAL PRODUCTION OF TUBERCLE. 



Others, as Kortum, Hebreard, Lepelletier/ Guersant, Alibert, and 

 Richeraud/ have all attempted the inoculation of scrofulous matter from 

 man upon animals, but without results ; and the only successful series of 

 this nature, among those of earlier date, were the experiments of Erdt' 

 upon horses, where, after the inoculation of scrofulous pus in the nostril of 

 the animal, the submaxillary glands enlarged, and nodules of a doubtful 

 character were found in the lungs. 



Laennec* also considered that an induration in his own hand, arising 

 from a puncture contaminated by the pus of a carious spine, might possibly 

 be of a tuberculous nature. 



The question, however, received no further elucidation in this direction 

 until M. Villemin, led by induction to believe that tuberculosis was a specific 

 and contagious disease, performed a series of successful experiments with the 

 inoculation of tubercle upon rabbits, which he communicated to the Erench 

 Academy of Medicine in 1865, and added the details of a further series in 

 1866.^ M. Villemin selected several pairs of rabbits from the same litter. He 

 inoculated one with tubercle, and left the other. He placed them all under 

 similar conditions, and found that those inoculated became almost invariably 

 tuberculous, while the others escaped. These experiments were too numerous 

 to leave any doubt of the effect produced. M. Villemin also experimented 

 with other substances, such as the materials of anthrax, of phlegmonous 

 abscess, of pneumonia, cancer, typhoid, and the stools of cholera, all on 

 rabbits ; but with none of these could he produce the same effects. 



In 1866, M. Lebert also communicated to the French Academy a series 

 of experiments confirmatory of M. Villemin' s results.^ 



M. Villemin's statements were submitted to a committee of the Academy, 

 and reported upon, in July 1807, by M. Colin, who, in the main, confirmed 

 M. Villemin's observations. To some facts contained in this report, on the 

 inoculation of other animals, I shall have hereafter to refer. In February 

 ]866, MM. Hdrard and CorniF confirmed M, Villemin; but stated that grey 

 tubercle alone was capable of reproducing tubercle when inoculated, and that 

 this power was not possessed by yellow tubercle. 



In April 1867, Mr. Simon, President of the Pathological Society, laid 

 before that body the results of a considerable number of experiments, in 

 which, by the same means, he had succeeded in reproducing tubercle in the 



' "Virchow,DieKrankLaftenGeschwul8te,ii.724. •• Traits d' Auscultation Mediate, p. 221. 



- Herard and Cornil, La Phthisie Pulmonaire, ^ Bull. Acad. M6d., xxxi. xxxii. 



052. « Ibid., xxxii. 



■■ Virchow, loc. cit. "> Ija. Phthisie Pulmonaire. 



