170 MICRO-ORGANISMS AND DISEASE. [CHAP. 



undergone putrefaction or some unknown kind of fermen- 

 tation, is caused by some ferment, the product of micro- 

 organisms ; (sausage poisoning, poisoning by bad fish and other 

 articles.) 



Gaspard, Panum, Bergmann, Billroth, Bra-don Sanderson, 

 Gutmann and Semmer, and many others have shown, that by 

 putrefaction of animal substances, a substance can be obtained 

 the septic poison or sepsin which can be isolated by various 

 chemical processes destructive of every living micro-organism, 

 and which on injection into the vascular system of animals, 

 especially dogs, in sufficient quantities, produces a marked 

 febrile rise of temperature, and is capable of causing death with 

 the symptoms of acute poisoning, e.g. .shivering, vomiting and 

 purging, spasms, torpor, collapse and death. On post-mortem 

 there is found severe congestion and haemorrhage of the 

 intestine, particularly the duodenum and rectum ; haemorrhage 

 in the pleura, lungs, pericardium, and endocardium ; con- 

 gestion and haemorrhage in the peritoneum. This putrid infec- 

 tion, or putrid intoxication, leads to death in twelve to twenty- 

 four hours, or even less. On injecting smaller quantities 

 only a febrile disturbance is noticed, severe symptoms and 

 death only following after injection of considerable quantities, 

 such as several centimetres of putrid fluid. There is a priori 

 no reason why something like putrid intoxication should not 

 occur as a pyaemic affection in the human subject ; if, for 

 instance, at an extensive wound, e.g. after amputation of a 

 limb, a large surface of suppurating tissue is established, on 

 which, as is well known, numbers of putrefactive organisms 

 are capable of growing, it is possible and quite probable, that 

 here these organisms produce the septic poison, which when 

 .absorbed into the system in sufficient quantities produces septic 

 intoxication. From this affection septicaemia proper, due to 

 absorption of a specific organism by a small open wound or 

 a vein, which increases within the body, and therefore is a 

 living, growing, and self-multiplying thing producing fetal 

 septicaemia, must be carefully distinguished. As Lister has 

 shown, under careful antiseptic dressing of wounds, putrid 

 intoxication as well as septicaemic infection is rare or does not 

 occur at all. 



These putrefactive processes must be distinguished from 

 certain fermentative processes, in the course of which by 

 introducing a definite micro-organism zymogenic organism 

 into a definite substance, definite chemical products are pro- 

 duced. Thus the torula cervisise or saccharomyces introduced 

 into a solution containing sugar, produces alcoholic fermenta- 



