PART I.] Circtimstances under which Bacteria appear in Blood. 



153 



two undoubtedly inoculable diseases (into which a multiplication of the poison within 

 the system takes place) showed no evidence of the presence of organised ferments,* 

 it is not to be wondered at that we have found it impossible to say from microscopic 

 examination of the blood whether cholera should be classed with those few diseases 

 which are known to be inoculable or with those which are not. 



Having failed to detect the presence of bacteria or their germs as an essential 

 feature in the blood of an epidemic disease (cholera) and of two undoubtedly contagious 

 and inoculable ones (vaccinia and syphilis), the next question that suggested itself was,, 

 under what circumstances are such bodies to be found in the blood ; careful examinations 

 were, accordingly, made of the blood, in the course of numerous and varied experiments 

 on animals, and the following were the results. 



The experiments in question have been arranged in separate tables, according to the 

 nature of the procedure employed in the various instances ; and a final table is given 

 showing the cases in which bacteria were present in the blood, the nature of the 

 experiment, and any points of interest which the cases presented. 



TABLE IV. 



Microscopical characters of the blood in cases in luhich Choleraic materials 



were injected into Veins. 



* ■' The proof that virus which has no organisation may be contagious in infinitesimal quantities, may be 

 found in the transmission of syphilitic virus. Try to calculate the relation betv^een the proportion of virus which 

 has communicated syphilis to a man, and the proportion of virus from the mucous surface of the throat of the 

 same individual which proves sufficient to transmit the disease to another person. Or estimate the quantity of 

 virus contained m the spermatozooid of a syphilitic individual, a quantity sufficient to produce the disease in 

 the mother and to infect the ovum fecundated by the spermatozooid. In all such cases, if we cannot exactly 

 conceive how an albuminoid substance transmits its alteration to another organism, this is not a reason for 

 admitting special phenomena in these cases, and an infection by multiplication of microscopic beings." — (M. 

 Onimus.) A resume of a critical analysis of views on septicaemia in the 3Ionitimr Scientifiqve-Quesnevill 

 (October) by A. B. MacDowall : — London Medical Record, November 1873, p. 722. 



