CAN SUPPURATION BE PRODUCED BY CHEMICALS? 95 



tions in doses of from one-half to one-third of a milligramme 

 dissolved in alcohol. 



From a clinical aspect, the absence of pus-microbes in non-puru- 

 lent inflammatory products speaks strongly in favor of a microbic 

 cause of suppuration. 



Ruiys (" Ueber die Ursacheu der Eiterung," Deutsche med. 

 Wochenschrift, 1885, No. 48) made some exceedingly interesting 

 experiments on the pyogenic action of different substances, selecting 

 the anterior chamber of the eye as the seat for injection. The 

 results of his experiments were such that he claimed, in a most 

 positive and emphatic manner, that suppuration never takes place 

 without micoorgauisms. 



Biondi expressed himself to the same effect. 



If we think for a moment how difficult it is in experimenting 

 on animals with indifferent substances and chemical irritants to 

 procure for the seat of injection a perfectly aseptic condition, it is 

 not difficult to conceive that opinions still differ in regard to the 

 immediate cause of suppuration. At the same time, Watson 

 Cheyne has shown most conclusively in his article on " Suppu- 

 ration and Septic Diseases/' to which frequent allusion has been 

 made, that the number of bacteria introduced greatly modifies not 

 only the intensity of symptoms, but also the character of the disease. 

 His experiments were made with cultivations of Mauser's proteus 

 vulgaris. He estimated that -^th c. c. of an undiluted cultiva- 

 tion of this microbe contains 225,000,000 of bacteria, and when 

 this quantity was injected into the muscular tissue of a rabbit it 

 produced speedy death, ^th c. c. administered in the same 

 manner caused an extensive abscess at the point of injection, and 

 death of the animal in six or eight w r eeks. Doses of less than -g-^yo-th 

 c. c. produced no effect in fact, doses of less than ^-th to y^o"th 

 c. c., or, in . other words, fewer than about 18,000,000 bacteria, 

 seldom caused any result. The same observer found that in the 

 case, of staphylococcus pyogenes aureus that it was necessary to 

 inject something like 1,000,000,000 cocci into the muscles of rab- 

 bits, in order to cause a rapidly fatal result, while 250,000,000 

 produced a small abscess. In the case of the tetanus bacillus, death 

 did not occur in rabbits when fewer than 1000 bacilli were intro- 

 duced. He believes that the preformed ptomaines in these cases 

 alter the result. It is therefore quite possible that, in the experi- 

 ments in which injection of pus-microbes did not produce suppura- 

 tion, an insufficient number of cocci were injected to produce the 

 desired result, and that where inert substances and chemical irritants 

 caused suppuration the injected material was contaminated, or that 

 infection at the point of injection occurred through the wound or 

 subsequently through the circulation. The latter mode of infection 



