INFECTIONS OF THE DIGESTIVE TRACT 311 



are also pronounced evidences of excessive intestinal 

 putrefaction, but the relationship between the two 

 series of phenomena is not now definable. There are 

 cases of intestinal putrefaction in which B. aerogenes 

 capsulatus is the prominent microorganism of the di- 

 gestive tract and in which there occurs a slow muscular 

 atrophy associated with some fibrillation of the wasting 

 muscle bundles. Possibly in such instances the resistance 

 of the motor ganglion cells of the spinal cord is distinctly 

 below that of normal structures, thus rendering these 

 cells especially vulnerable to neurotoxic substances 

 made in the digestive tube. There are also cases of 

 multiple neuritis, resembling alcoholic neuritis, in which 

 alcohol can have no etiological part, but in which ante- 

 cedent gastro-enteric derangements are very prominent. 

 The probability that these instances of peripheral 

 neuritis (with the associated psychosis) are in reality 

 due to intoxications from enterogenic poisons appears to 

 me considerable, although the data now at my command 

 do not suffice to establish this view. There is at present 

 no evidence that infection by B. aerogenes capsulatus 

 is in itself capable of inducing this type of nervous 

 disease. 



It is essential to realize that the onset of severe clinical 

 manifestations of excessive intestinal putrefaction may 

 not coincide with the period of most extreme develop- 

 ment of the gastro-enteric process. A short time after 

 therapeutical measures have been commenced the bac- 

 terial conditions in the tract may have been much 

 mitigated. It may thus, be unsafe to base a conclusion 



