ARTIFICIAL PRODUCTION OF TUBERCLE. 23 



question of a general disease, producing in all these organs growths which, 

 if they occurred in man, would hy ordinary observation be considered tuber- 

 cular; and as no other disease is known except tubercle which produces 

 these effects, I therefore think that, considering the identity of these with 

 all the most important features of this disease, we cannot but admit the 

 tubercular character of the disease thus artificially produced. 



I would now desire briefly to call your attention to the mode of the 

 production of these growths. It is not my intention to propose any distinctly 

 new theory, for the subject has received so many theories already, that it would 

 require a considerable exercise of mental ingenuity to found a new one. Still, 

 however, there are, I think, certain legitimate conclusions which may be 

 drawn from these experiments, if it be admitted that these growths are 

 tubercle. 



In the first place, M. Villemin's position that tubercle is a specific disease, 

 producible by tubercle alone, cannot, I think, be held to be true ; nor can the 

 method of inoculation be used as a test of the tubercular character of any 

 pathological product, for the four guinea-pigs in whom the vaccine lymph was 

 inoculated, and those inoculated with putrid muscle, and even one beneath 

 whose skin I simply inserted a piece of cotton-thread, and also one of the four 

 in which, following Dr. Sanderson's example, I inserted a seton, presented as 

 intense and typical specimens of the disease, as those on whom inoculation 

 had been practised with the most typical grey granulations from the lungs 

 or the meningeal vessels. 



Secondly, the results of all experiments hitherto conducted, as far as 

 they have yet been carried, appear to show that, for the production of the 

 disease, septic matters in a certain state, introduced into or_ produced within 

 the economy, are necessary. I say septic matters ; for I am inclined to believe 

 that the effect of the seton, or even of the cotton-thread introduced under the 

 skin, is produced by these substances setting up an inflammatory action, the 

 products of which have the same influence as the other unhealthy substances 

 which the list contains. The failure in many cases of these inert matters to 

 produce such effects, would appear to my mind to bear out this view, which 

 is especially corroborated by the cases where setons were inserted. In three 

 of these, the setons ulcerated out and the skin healed, and all these cases 

 proved failures, showing that the infecting property probably depends on a 

 certain kind of inflammatory action produced. 



I may here, perhaps, be allowed to advert to the series of M. Lebert's 

 experiments with matters directly introduced into the circulation. He injected 

 mercury and charcoal into the vessels; and also quotes two experiments of 



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