24 TRANSMISSION OF MICROBIC DISEASES. 



and potency of the germ. This woman's child was born thirty- 

 six hours before its mother's death, and died two days later from 

 hemorrhagic catarrhal pneumonia and fibrinous lobar pneumonia. 

 Autopsy demonstrated the infectiousness and that it had persisted 

 at least thirty-six hours before the child was born. Cultures made 

 with fluids removed from the left heart ventricle and from the 

 right lung, demonstrated the presence of the diplococcus; the 

 microorganisms were especially numerous in the blood. The con- 

 clusions are that the child was infected from the mother's pneu- 

 monia. 



That syphilis is a microbic disease can no longer be doubted, 

 and that it is one of the diseases which is most frequently trans- 

 mitted from parents to offspring is well known. Some interesting 

 observations have recently been made on the etiology and trans- 

 missibility of syphilis by Disse and Taguchi, of Japan (Qentralblatt 

 f. Gyndkologie, 1888, No. 11), and if future research should cor- 

 roborate their claims, their researches will constitute an important 

 contribution to our knowledge of the heredity of this disease. 

 They discovered in syphilitic lesions, isolated, and cultivated from 

 them, a diplococcus. With a pure culture of this microbe they 

 inoculated gravid dogs, and found that the microbe permeated the 

 placental tissues, and entered directly into the circulation of the 

 embryo. The pups suffered from all the characteristic lesions of 

 hereditary syphilis as observed in man. The lesions commonly 

 found were pneumonia, disease of the liver, bones, and kidneys. 

 In all of these organs the same diplococcus was found as was used 

 in the inoculation experiments. 



Eomeo Mangeri, of Catania, believes that direct transmission of 

 microbes from mother to foetus through normal placental vessels is 

 impossible. As the result of an extensive study of the literature 

 of the subject and of original experiments, he has come to the 

 conclusion that no formed elements naturally pass out of the 

 mother's blood into the foetal circulation. Cinnabar, Indian ink, 

 carmine, and other finely-divided pigment materials were injected 

 into the jugular vein's of animals advanced in pregnancy, but in 

 no case could any trace of the substance employed be found in the 

 foetus. According to his belief, passage of formed elements can 

 only occur when the placenta becomes diseased by inflammation, 

 or is partially detached so that the walls of the villi are destroyed. 

 Only under this condition he maintains can pathogenic microorgan- 

 isms be transmitted from the mother into the foetal blood. 



Most all authors agree that, when extravasations, or other patho- 

 logical processes occur in the placental attachment, the direct en- 

 trance of microbes from the mother into the foetal circulation is 

 not only a possible, but a probable occurrence. Abnormality in 



