INOCULATION EXPERIMENTS. 145 



exposure to high temperature for an hour the inoculations, without 

 exception, proved harmless, showing conclusively that the contagium 

 of tetanus had been rendered inert. Inoculations with pus taken 

 from tetanic animals were most successful. Inoculations with mixed 

 cultures grown in solidified blood-serum yielded positive results 



Rosenbach (" Zur Aetiologie des Wuudstarrkrampfs beim Men- 

 schen," Laugenbeck's Archiv, B. xxxiv\ S. 306) made his experi- 

 ments with a mixed cultivation grown from the pus taken from 

 the line of demarcation of a case of frost gangrene in a patient 

 who had died of tetanus. The inoculations proved successful. 

 Carle and Rattone (Griornale delta R. Academia di Med. di Torino, 

 1884, No. 3) succeeded in producing tetanus in rabbits by inocula- 

 tion with pus from a suppurating acne in a tetanic patient in whom 

 the infection was traced to this source. 



Bonome (" Ueber die Aetiologie des Tetanus/' Deutsche med. 

 Wochenschrift, 1887, No. 15) reports the case of a man suffering 

 from paraplegia, the result of disease of the spine in the dorsal 

 region, complicated by an extensive sacral decubitus, the seat of 

 phlegmouous purulent inflammation, who was suddenly attacked 

 by tetanus, which proved fatal in two days. One hour after death 

 a small portion of the infiltrated tissue around the gangrenous part 

 was removed, and after reducing it to a fine pulp by trituration, he 

 injected it under the skin of a rabbit. Twenty-two hours after the 

 inoculation the animal died with well-marked symptoms of tetanus. 

 The products of inflammation from the point of injection thrown 

 into the subcutaneous tissue of other animals produced the disease, 

 while intravenous injections proved harmless. The gravity of 

 symptoms following subcutaneous injections was commensurate 

 with the quantity of fluid injected. Guinea-pigs proved less sus- 

 ceptible to infection than rabbits. In the pus taken from the dead 

 tissue he found, besides the usual pus-microbes, a bacillus which 

 resembled in every respect the one described by Nicolaier and 

 Roseubach. Hochsinger (Centralblatt f. Bacteriologie u. Parasiten- 

 kunde, B. ii. Nos. 6, 7) made his observations on a case of tetanus 

 which proved fatal on the fifth day. The day before the patient 

 died blood was abstracted from a vein under strict antiseptic precau- 

 tions for microscopical and bacteriological study. No microorgan- 

 isms could be found in it. With the greatest care sterilized solid 

 blood-serum was inoculated with the blood, making with the needle 

 both superficial tracks and deep punctures. The nutrient medium 

 was kept at a temperature of 37 C. (98.6 F.). On the third 

 day, a white cloudy streak marked the direction of the deep punc- 

 tures, while the superficial plant remained sterile. On the third 

 day a portion of the culture was removed and stained with aniline 

 gentian, and submitted to microscopical examination. Delicate 



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