GAXGKENE. 107 



vated the microbe successfully upon gelatin, agar-agar, blood serum, 

 and potato. The bacillus was readily stained with red and blue 

 aniline dyes, and often a spore could be seen either at one of its 

 extremities or near its centre. Injection of one-half to one gramme 

 of a pure culture grown upon gelatin was injected under the skin 

 over the back of a guinea-pig, house-mouse, or rabbit, and death 

 was produced in from two to three days. A form of gangrene 

 resembling senile gangrene was always found at the point of inocu- 

 lation, but no changes in the blood or other organs were observed. 

 Gangrene could also be produced in other animals by inoculating 

 the secretions from the gangrenous part. The researches of Arloing 

 and Chaveau are of the greatest importance in the elucidation of the 

 etiology of gangrene as it is sometimes observed in connection with 

 septic infection. These observers have published the results of 

 some recent investigations on the pathology and prophylaxis of 

 gangrenous or gaseous septicaemia of man. It is the prevailing 

 opinion that this disease is a surgical complication, of which the ex- 

 clusive cause is the introduction of a specific microbe into a wound. 

 In man the microbe exists in the connective tissue which surrounds 

 the wound, and in the contents of bullse, which may be developed 

 in its neighborhood. The microbe is a short, thick, mobile rod, of 

 homogeneous structure, or else provided with one spore, rarely two, 

 at one of the extremities. When the bacillus appears in the blood 

 at the end of this disease, and sometimes only after death, its size is 

 smaller than in the local lesion, and it may appear in the form of a 

 micrococcus. A number of animals, such as the horse, ass, sheep, 

 pig, dog, cat, guinea-pig, white rat, rabbit, duck, and other fowls, 

 have been successfully inoculated, but the rabbit is not very sus- 

 ceptible to this disease, in this respect presenting a marked contrast 

 with another form of septicaemia. The most prompt way of pro- 

 ducing the disease was found to be by subcutaneous injection. The 

 smallest dose capable of causing death when injected into the con- 

 nective tissue, never proved fatal when injected into the veins or 

 arteries ; in the latter case, only a temporary intoxication was pro- 

 duced. If a large dose was injected into a vein, death ensued, with 

 well-marked septic infection of the serous membranes. It was 

 found difficult, if not impossible, to produce the disease by feeding- 

 experiments. Attempts to inoculate a healthy wound involving 

 the skin, connective tissue, and muscles were unsuccessful. On 

 the contrary, the microbes of this disease find a favorable soil in 

 dead tissues not exposed to air. Protection from the disease is 

 afforded in sheep and dogs by the successive injection of two or 

 three moderate doses of the virus into the circulation. Inoculation 

 into the subcutaneous connective tissue of animals thus protected, 

 gave rise to a simple circumscribed phlegmonous inflammation 



