EXPERIMENTAL PROOF. 23 



the foetus was concerned, as the longer the period which inter- 

 vened between the inoculation and the death of the mother, the 

 more numerous were the bacilli in the foetal organs, showing that 

 the migration of microbes from the maternal to the foetal side of 

 the placenta is continuous. Inoculation experiments with the 

 attenuated virus proved that iutra-uterine transmission took place 

 more slowly. Inoculation of gravid animals with a very strong 

 anthrax vaccine nearly always proved fatal to the foetus. Prophy- 

 lactic vaccination of the foetus through the mother proved insuf- 

 ficient against subsequent inoculations with the attenuated virus. 

 In another paper the same author (Centralblatt /. Gyndkologie, Dec. 

 5, 1885) has published some important observations on the same 

 subject, made in Pasteur's laboratory, in which he showed that in 

 pigs the microbes of malignant oedema and tuberculosis pass directly 

 from mother to offspring through the placenta. 



Kroner (" Ueber den gegenwartigen Stand der Frage des Ueber- 

 ganges pathogeuer Microorgauismen von Mutter auf Kind/ 7 Bres- 

 lauer drzt. Zeitschr., 1886, No. 11) made his experiments on rabbits 

 with the bacteria of sepsis. The results obtained were not con- 

 stant. In all, six rabbits were inoculated at different stages of 

 gestation. In the blood of the foetuses no bacteria could be found. 

 Inoculation with the blood of the foetuses yielded, among a num- 

 ber of negative, four positive results. After a careful considera- 

 tion of the subject, based upon his own experience and the obser- 

 vations of others, he came to the conclusion that a number of 

 microbic diseases are communicable from mother to child through 

 the placeutal circulation. 



One of the strongest evidences of direct transmission of patho- 

 genic microbes from mother to foetus through the placental circu- 

 lation, has been furnished by Johne (Lancet, March 6, 1886). An 

 eight months' foetus was taken from a cow the subject of advanced 

 tuberculosis. No tuberculous products were found in the placenta 

 or the uterus ; but in the lower lobe of the right lung of the foetus 

 a nodule, the size of a pea, was detected, containing four caseous 

 centres. The bronchial glands were the seat of tubercular adenitis. 

 The liver contained numerous miliary tubercles. All the lesions 

 presented under the microscope the characteristic histological 

 structure of tubercle. 



Levy (Journal des Connaissances Medicale, Janvier, 1890, abstract 

 in American Journal Medical Sciences, August, 1890) reports the 

 case of a woman, aged thirty years, who had died from double 

 fibriuous pneumonia, complicated by pleurisy and pericarditis. By 

 aspiration sero-purulent fluid was removed from the thoracic cavities. 

 This fluid gave cultures showing the diplococcus of Frankel- 

 Weichselbaum ; inoculations from this fluid showed the presence 



