ELIMINATION THROUGH KIDNEYS. 65 



the microscope, their presence in the urine could be proved by the 

 injection of the urine into the peritoneal cavity of guinea-pigs. 

 He also found bacilli in the urine in cases of glanders. In mice 

 which had died of anthrax, the urine contained the bacilli in large 

 numbers. In patients who had succumbed to ulcerative endocar- 

 ditis, pus-microbes were also found in the urine. 



Schweiger ("Ueber das Durchgehen von Bacillen durch die 

 Nieren," Virchow's Archiv, B. c. Heft 2) has shown conclusively 

 by his careful clinical observations that the urine from scarlatinal 

 patients is contagious ; for varicella, typhus recurreus, and malaria 

 the same holds true. In typhus Gaff ky has found bacilli in the 

 vessels of the kidneys. As in most infective diseases the kidneys 

 show textural changes, it was natural to conclude that the renal 

 lesions were caused by microbes on their way out of the body. 

 Schweiger looks upon all kidney lesions found in the course of 

 infective diseases as of bacillary origin. To prove that microbes 

 pass through the kidneys, he cultivated a bacillus which Reimann 

 had discovered in the pus of ozaBna. This bacillus is stained an 

 intense green color in a culture of gelatin and agar after twenty- 

 four hours. The cultures of this green bacillus were suspended in 

 a sterilized physiological solution of salt, and injected directly 

 into the circulation. The experiments were made on a dog, cat, 

 and rabbit. The bacillus did not pass directly through the kid- 

 neys, but a certain length of time intervened between the injection 

 and its appearance in the urine, as though somewhere an obstacle 

 to its free passage had been met with. At first only isolated 

 bacilli were found in the urine, but later in large numbers. In 

 one instance he extirpated one kidney, and two days later, during 

 the first stage of compensatory hypertrophy of the remaining 

 organ, he injected a culture directly into the carotid artery. The 

 animal died suddenly two and a half hours after the injection in 

 an attack of convulsions. Under strict antiseptic precautions the 

 urine was removed from the bladder, and with it a culture of agar- 

 agar was inoculated. The next day the culture showed a beautiful 

 growth of the same bacillus. The author believes that the kidney, 

 the seat of increased vascular pressure, furnished a favorable con- 

 dition for the rapid passage of the microbe. He found the 

 microbes most frequently in the glomeruli, and in the space be- 

 tween these and Bowman's capsule; and again, quite abundant in 

 the bloodvessels and in the lumen of the first portion of the con- 

 voluted tubuli uriniferi, and only rarely in the perivascular con- 

 nective tissue. Only once a bacillus was found between two epithe- 

 lial cells of the convoluted tubules. In the cells themselves no 

 bacilli were found. Upon these observations he bases his advice to 

 favor elimination of microbes through the kidneys in all infective 



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