BACTERIUM DIPHTHERIA. 397 



cutaneously into the bodies of susceptible animals the 

 result is not the production of septicaemia, as is seen to 

 follow the introduction into animals of certain other 

 organisms with which we shall have to deal, but the 

 bacillus of diphtheria remains localized at the point 

 of inoculation, rarely disseminating further than the 

 nearest lymphatic glands. It develops at the point in 

 the tissues at which it is deposited, and during its de- 

 velopment gives rise to changes in the tissues which 

 result entirely from the absorption of poisonous albu- 

 mins generated by the bacteria in the course of their 

 development. 



In a certain number of cases l diphtheria bacilli have 

 been found in the blood and internal organs of individ- 

 uals dead of the disease ; but all that has been learned 

 from careful study of the secondary manifestations of 

 diphtheria tends to the opinion that they are in no way 

 dependent upon the immediate presence of bacteria, and 

 that the occasional appearance of diphtheria bacteria in 

 the internal organs is in all probability accidental, and 

 usually unimportant. 



By special methods of inoculation 2 (the injection of 

 fluid cultures into the testicles of guinea-pigs) diph- 

 theria bacilli can be caused to appear in the omentum ; 

 but this is purely an artificial manifestation of the dis- 

 ease, and one that is probably never encountered in the 

 natural course of events. More rarely similar results 

 follow upon subcutaneous inoculation. 



1 Frosch : " Die Verbreitung des Diphtheric-bacillus in Korper des 

 Menschen," Zeit. fur Hygiene und Infektionskrankheiten, 1893, Bd. 

 xiii. pp. 49-52. Booker : Archives of Pediatrics, Aug. 1893. Wright 

 and Stokes : Boston Med. and Surg. Journ., March and April, 1895. 



2 Abbott and Ghriskey : " A Contribution to the Pathology of Experi- 

 mental Diphtheria," The Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin, No. 30, 

 April, 1893. 



