22 TRANSMISSION OF MICROBIC DISEASES. 



2. EXPERIMENTAL PROOF. Bellinger was the first to assert 

 that the bacillus of anthrax could pass from mother to foetus through 

 the placenta. 



Strauss and Chamberland ("Sur le passage de la bacteridie 

 charbonneuse de la mere au foetus," Gazette kebdom. de Med. et de 

 Chir., 1883, No. 10) experimented on guinea-pigs to prove that 

 intra-uterine transmission of anthrax from mother to offspring is 

 possible. Gravid animals were inoculated and the foetuses examined 

 immediately after death. Blood taken from the cavities of the 

 heart and the liver, examined under the microscope, never showed 

 bacilli. Cultivation experiments were made with the foetal blood 

 in veal bouillon, and these demonstrated that in some instances the 

 blood of all foetuses from the same mother contained bacilli; some- 

 times all cultures remained sterile ; while in some the blood of only 

 one foetus would yield a positive result. From these experiments 

 the authors came to the conclusion that the tissues of the placenta 

 offer no insurmountable obstacle to the passage of the bacillus of 

 anthrax from the maternal into the foetal circulation. 



Max Wolff ("Ueber Yererbung von Infections- krankheiten," 

 Virchow's Archiv, B. 112, pp. 136-202) has studied the subject of 

 intra-uterine transmission of infective diseases by a series of carefully- 

 conducted experiments. lie worked with cultures of anthrax bacilli 

 and examined the blood and internal organs of the foetuses under 

 the microscope, and tested their sterility by cultivation and inocula 

 tion experiments. The pregnant animals which were inoculated 

 with a pure culture of anthrax bacilli manifested symptoms of the 

 disease in from thirty-six hours to three days. The blood and inter- 

 nal organs of 29 foetuses contained no bacilli, as was shown by most 

 careful microscopical examination, after single and double staining. 



The placenta in each instance contained numerous bacilli, while 

 the villi of the chorion showed no trace of them. From these 

 29 foetuses 156 cultivation experiments were made with tissue from 

 the kidney, liver, and lungs, and of this number a positive result 

 was obtained in only 6. 14 guinea-pigs and 16 white mice were 

 inoculated with foetal tissue, with the result that in only 3 cases was 

 the disease transmitted in this manner. The author is inclined to 

 the belief that the successful cultivations and inoculations were due 

 to contamination with the maternal tissues. He affirms that the 

 placenta constitutes an impervious barrier to the passage of micro- 

 organisms from the maternal into the foetal circulation. 



'Koubassoff (Gentralblatt f. d. med. Wissenschaften, Jan. 6, 1886) 

 came to more positive results in his experiments with anthrax 

 bacillus. In all of his experiments, the foetuses of the infected 

 animals contracted the disease in utero. He also found that 

 time played an important part as far as the number of bacilli in 



