THE BIOLOGY OF DAILY LIFE. 41 



comma-bacilli are powerless to produce disease 

 in guinea-pigs . . . ; and that a previous patho 

 logical state of the intestine, such for instance 

 as is produced by the injection into the peri- 

 toneal cavity [bowels] of considerable quan- 

 tities of tincture of opium, enables the comma- 

 bacilli to undergo multiplication."* 



Not to weary the reader with quotations we conclude 

 with the following very important one, taken from an 

 article on PYAEMIA, or Blood-poisoning by pus. 

 (Quain, p. 1311.) 



" Before leaving the consideration of the 

 pathology of pyaemia, it is necessary to allude 

 to the connection which is supposed by some 

 to exist between bacteria and this disease. It 

 is said by Dr. Saunderson that a great number 

 of microzymes are found in the blood and 

 inflammatory exudations of animals suffering 

 from acute infective fever, produced by in- . 

 oculation of septic matter. Others (Wilks, 

 Moxon, Goodhart) have failed to find bacteria 

 in the blood of living cases of pyaemia, though 

 they may be found in great numbers after 

 death. f The Committee appointed by the 

 Pathological Society 4 to investigate the nature 

 and causes of these infective diseases, known as 



* It appears that the guinea-pig can stand the watery extract of 

 opium, not the tincture. In any case the reader will recognise 

 the old old story, equally true of the human guinea-pig, that the 

 drugger give employment and means of living to the under- 

 takers, and enables them " to undergo multiplication." 



t What a testimony this is to the delusive character of the 

 evidence derived from animals under these horrible experiments. 



