LOCALIZATION OF MICRO-ORGANISMS. 49 



Centmlblatt f. klinische Medicin, 1885) cultivated from the internal 

 organs of three patients who had died of scarlatina the streptococ- 

 cus pyogenes and looked upon the presence of this microbe as an 

 evidence that a secondary infection had taken place through the 

 diseased mucous membrane of the pharynx. The important ques- 

 tion presents itself whether, in cases of mixed infection, the two 

 kinds of microbes enter the organism at the same time, or whether 

 the primary infection prepares the way for the entrance of the 

 microbes which produce the secondary infection. A third possi- 

 bility might be maintained, according to which the secondary 

 infection is a purely accidental occurrence, as was claimed by 

 Brieger and Ehrlich. Pus-microbes being present at all times and 

 everywhere, and perhaps gaining entrance into the body more 

 easily than others, it is easy to understand why secondary infection 

 by them is most frequently observed. 



Rosenbach frequently found in the products of suppurative in- 

 flammation and septic processes more than one variety of pus- 

 microbes. He frequently met with both kinds of staphylococci in 

 the same pus, or with one form of staphylococcus and the strepto- 

 coccus pyogenes. 



Loffler ("Untersuchungen iiber die Bedeutuug der Mikroorgan- 

 ismen fiir die Eutstehung der Diphtheric," Mittheilungen aus dem 

 Reiclis-Gesundheits-Amte, 1884, Band ii.) cultivated from the mem- 

 branes of a case of scarlatina-diphtheria cocci which, when in- 

 jected into the circulation of animals, produced multiple suppura- 

 tive synovitis. 



Huber (" Experimentelle Untersuchungen iiber Localisation von 

 Kraukheitstoffeu," Virchow's Archiv, Band cvi.) attributes the 

 occurrence of suppuration and gangrene in croupous pneumonia, 

 phlegmonous inflammation and suppuration in erysipelas, and sup- 

 puration in tubercular processes, to secondary infection, in most 

 instances with pus-microbes. Schnitzler (" Combination von 

 Syphilis und Tuberculose des Kehlkopfes "), after having observed 

 and carefully studied a number of cases, has come to the conclu- 

 sion that syphilitic ulceration of the larynx may pass into tuber- 

 cular, as the syphilitic ulcer furnishes a good culture-soil for the 

 bacillus of tuberculosis. 



Bumm (Le Bulletin Medical, December 25, 1887), in a commu- 

 nication to the Medical Society of Munich, discusses a theory under 

 the name of mixed infection, which he describes as the penetration 

 into the organism of several species of bacteria. In some the sec- 

 ondary infection is purely accidental, as for example, a tuberculous 

 patient can be attacked with erysipelas, a lying-in woman suffering 

 from gonorrhoaa may become the subject of septic infection. 

 Another and practically more important variety of mixed infec- 



4 



