80 SUPPURATION. 



He also showed how these organisms enter the circulation and are 

 the direct cause of pathological changes in distant organs, Even 

 at that time he placed great stress on the fact that, as long as the 

 cocci remained only in the tissues at the point of infection they 

 caused only local inflammatory conditions or necrosis, but as soon 

 as they entered the circulation fever and other symptoms of general 

 septic infection followed. 



It was not until 1881 that Ogston ( u Report upon Microorgan- 

 isms in Surgical Diseases/ 7 British Medical Journal, March, 1881, 

 p. 369) announced his great discovery, which has since revolution- 

 ized the study of acute suppuration. This patient investigator 

 examined the pus of 69 abscesses for microorganisms, and found 

 in 17 of them a chain coccus (streptococcus), in 31 cocci which 

 arranged themselves in groups which resembled a bunch of grapes 

 (staphylococcus), and in 16 both of these forms were present. In 

 cold abscesses neither of these microorganisms was found. He also 

 found that these two forms of microbes differed in their action on 

 the tissues, as the streptococcus, following the lymphatic channels, 

 was seen to be the cause of diffuse suppurative processes, while the 

 staphylococcus was found only in abscesses which were circum- 

 scribed. Rosenbach took up the work where Ogston left it, and, 

 as the fruit of a number of years of patient study and research, 

 published his classical work in 1884 (Microc rganismen bei den 

 Wund -infections Krankheiten des Menschen, Wiesbaden, 1884). 

 This work must serve as a basis for all future research on suppura- 

 tive inflammation. Rosenbach availed himself of the advantages 

 offered by an improved technique in bacteriological research, and 

 cultivated the pus-microbes upon solid nutrient media, and pointed 

 out the difference in macroscopical appearances of the cultures of 

 the different kinds of pus-microbes which enabled him to differen- 

 tiate between them by the naked-eye appearances of the cultures 

 upon the nutrient media. He discovered the staphylococcus pyo- 

 genes aureus, the micrococcus pyogenes teuuis, and three bacilli 

 saprogenes. 



Passet should be mentioned next after Rosenbach, in the long 

 list of distinguished men who have made the etiology of suppu- 

 ration a special study. Passet (" Ueber Microorganismen der 

 eitrigen Zellgewebs-entzimdung des Menschen," Fortschritte der 

 Mediein, 1885, Nos. 2, 3) discovered and described the staphylo- 

 coccus citreus, cereus albus and flavus, and from a peri-rectal 

 abscess he cultivated the bacillus pyogenes foetidus. The strepto- 

 coccus which he found, he claimed was different from the one 

 described by Rosenbach, as it resembled more closely the strepto- 

 coccus oT erysipelas. 



