THE 



MICROSCOPIC ORGANISMS 



• FOUND IN THE BLOOD OF MAN AND ANIMALS, 



AND 



THEIR RELATION TO DISEASE* 



BY 



T. E. LEWIS, M.B. 



INTRODUCTION. 



A FEW years ago my colleague, Dr. Douglas Cunningham, submitted a report on the 

 microscopic organisms found in the air,t and embodied, in the account of his own 

 observations, a brief summary of the principal facts which had been recorded by previous 

 writers. An attempt will be made here to deal in a similar manner with the minute 

 organisms which have from time to time been] found in the blood of man and animals. 



The space at my disposal precludes the possibility of giving anything like a com- 

 plete account of all that has been written on the subject ; the bibliography alone would 

 occupy very many pages, for during recent years no medical subject has occupied more 

 attention that the relation which may possibly exist between living organisms in the 

 blood and some of the most fatal diseases. All that will be attempted will therefore 

 be to give an abstract of what the actual workers in this department of research have 

 observed, and of the conclusions which they have arrived at as the result of personal 

 observation. An account of my own inquiries in the same direction will also be given 

 as shortly as possible. 



From earliest times physicians have been accustomed to attribute various diseases 

 to abnormal conditions of the blood, the blood being the connecting link between all 

 the tissues of the body and the external world, furnishing them with the nutriment 



* Appeared as an Appendix to the Fourteenth Anniial Report of the Sanitary Commisnoner ivith the 

 Oovernment of India, 1878. 



f " Microscopic Examinations of Air : " Appendix A., Ninth Annual Report of the Sanitary Comnmsmier 

 ■with the Government of India, 1873, 



