50 MICRO-ORGANISMS AND DISEASE. [CHAP. 



Griffini and Cambria saw the micrococci also in the blood. 

 Salviali found that their number increases after the third day : 

 on the ninth or tenth day they quite disappear. 



G. Giles 1 found them in many cases of pneumonia (in 

 India), both in the sputum and in the blood. Cultivations on 

 boiled potato yielded good crops. These cultivated micrococci 

 injected into the subcutaneous tissue of rabbits produced 

 pneumonia. 



Salviali and Zaslein 2 cultivated the micrococci (derived 

 from the blood) in meat broth, meat extract solution, &c., at 

 37-39 C., and obtained good crops of them, with which they 

 produced by inoculation in seven rabbits and six white rats, 

 typical pneumonia yielding the characteristic micrococci. 

 These micrococci stain best in a mixture of Bismarck brown 

 and methyl violet, but they stain also very well in gentian 

 violet. 



Quite recently Friedlander and Frobenius 3 cultivated the 

 micrococci in gelatine mixtures, and obtained good crops. The 

 micrococci were of the peculiar nail-like shape, and were 

 characterised by a mucinous capsule. Inoculation with the 

 cultivated micrococci into the lungs of dogs was followed 

 occasionally by positive results ; in rabbits no result was ob- 

 tained, and in mice lobar croupous pneumonia and pleurisy 

 invariably followed the inoculation twenty-four to forty-eight 

 hours afterwards. In guinea-pigs the results were not so 

 decisive. About half of the animals escaped, the others died 

 with dyspnoea, the blood, lungs, and pleural exudations con- 

 taining the same micrococci. From my own observations I 

 cannot accept these statements without qualification, for I find : 

 That even in typical cases of croupous pneumonia of man, the 

 micrococci may be absent or may be only very scarce even 

 between the third and ninth day ; that typical sputum of 

 croupous pneumonia does not in many instances produce disease 

 in animals on inoculation ; and that the disease produced in 

 rabbits and mice is of the nature of septicaemia, due to a 

 specific septicsemic micrococcus not necessarily always present 

 in the sputum and lungs of human croupous pneumonia. 



If the fluids containing these micrococci were heated to 

 about 70 C. they became inefficacious ; mice inoculated with 

 them remained healthy. Such inefficient micrococci (i.e. first 

 heated to about 70 C.) did not grow any more on gelatine. 

 Friedlander and Frobenius found also that when mice, shut 



1 Brit. Mfd. Journal, July 7, 1883. 



a Centralb f. m,<d. Wiss. No. 41, 1888. 



3 Berichte d. phyt>iolog. Gesellschaft in Berlin. Nov 9, 1883. 



