146 TETANUS. 



bacilli measuring from 0.8 to 1.2 micromillimetres in length, com- 

 posed the culture. The detection of the bacillus was quite difficult, 

 and its growth very slow. On the sixth day the serum around the 

 punctures had become more cloudy, and the microscope showed that 

 the bacilli were present in greater abundance. From this time on, 

 the cultivation ceased to increase, and the surface of the nutrient 

 medium still remained sterile. From the original culture five other 

 tubes were inoculated, but in only one of them could a slight culti- 

 vation be detected on the fourth day. A large rabbit was infected 

 by injecting blood obtained from the patient during life. The 

 blood was intimately mixed with sterilized water, and a syringeful 

 of this mixture was injected under the skin in the iliac region, and 

 half this quantity under the skin of the left thigh. The next day 

 the animal appeared quite ill, and was unable to use the left hind 

 leg, which was dragged along in walking. At this time great ner- 

 vous excitability was observed, the exaggerated reflex symptoms 

 being especially well marked in the posterior extremities which, on 

 the slightest touch, were thrown into clonic spasms. On the fol- 

 lowing day the animal was found dead. A few hours before death 

 well-marked symptoms of tetanus developed. No positive results 

 were revealed at the post-mortem examination. Injections of blood 

 from this animal produced no results in other rabbits, and cultiva- 

 tion experiments were equally fruitless. A syringeful of inspis- 

 sated blood of the patient, kept for three weeks, thrown under the 

 skin of a white mouse, was followed by a fatal attack of tetanus, 

 while a second animal inoculated in a similar manner with one-half 

 of this quantity remained perfectly well. Fliigge had before 

 observed that by injecting blood from animals rendered tetanic by 

 inoculation, it was necessary to use a large quantity in order to 

 reproduce the disease in other animals, and even by doing so the 

 result was not always satisfactory. It appears from the experience 

 of these authors that the blood of tetanic patients possesses greater 

 toxic properties than the blood of animals suffering from the same 

 disease. Hochsiuger also made experiments with the cultivation. 

 Eleven days after establishing the primary cultivation he injected 

 a syringeful of the liquefied turbid nutrient material into the sub- 

 cutaneous tissue of the thigh of a medium-sized rabbit. The next 

 day the reflexes were increased, respiration more rapid, and the 

 animal appeared otherwise quite sick. On the third day the poste- 

 rior extremities were stiff, the animal dragging them in walking. 

 Reflex irritability enormously exaggerated. On the fifth day the 

 animal died. In another experiment he injected the primary cul- 

 ture, seventeen days old, into the left thigh of a rabbit. On the 

 fourth day the left hind leg was stiff, at the same time the reflexes 

 were intensified. On the following day both hind legs were stiff, 



