^'^o Microscopic Organisms in Blood and their Relation to Disease. \yh^T iii. 



death is, to a greater or less extent, the rule in what is known as charbon, it is 

 the exception in septic poisoning. The fluid exuded into the peritoneal cavity, and 

 frequently also into the pericardial sac, is peculiarly prone to give rise to the 

 development of various forms of fission-fungi, and the abundance with which they 

 are sometimes found very shortly after death has given rise to the doctrine that 

 they were the initiatory agencies by which the fatal results were produced. 



The publication of Panum's experiments, which went to show that the active 

 morbid principle in such fluids could not by any possibility be vitalised, served for 

 a time to diminish the popularity of such views, but they have since been revived 

 again and again, and never with a greater show of circumstantiality than has 

 recently been the case in a paper submitted by MM, Pasteur and Joubert before 

 the French Academy. This paper, notwithstanding that it exceeded the prescribed 

 length, was, on account of the importance attached to it by the Academy, published 

 in extenao* 



The paper deals in the first place with M. Bert's experiments, and explains 

 the discrepancies between M. Bert and M. Davaine's results in connection with 

 charbon-blood, as already described. But it goes further than this. It will be 

 recollected that the toxic material submitted to experiments by M. Bert did not 

 give rise to bacilli in the blood, although its virulent properties were most marked, 

 and the possibility of inoculating the disease from animal to animal without bacilli 

 was quite as manifest as in charbon-fluid crowded with them. Similar results have 

 been published by many observers ; for instance, MM. Jaillard and Laplat did so 

 very soon after Dr. Davaine's paper was read in 1863, and formulated their conclu- 

 sions in this wise : (1) charbon is not a parasitic disease ; (2) the presence of 

 bacteridia is to be considered as an epi-phenomenon, and not as a cause ; and (3) 

 that the fewer bacteridia the blood in sang de rate contains, the more virulent it is. 

 It thus became common to hear of cases of charbon with, and cases without, bacteridia. 



Davaine has also shown that the virulent properties of the virus of septicaemia 

 manifest a marked increase when transferred from animal to animal. It had been 

 found that after twenty-five such successive inoculations, a millionth, and even a 

 billionth or trillionth, part of the original poison was sufficient to produce death. 

 Eabbits were found to be very susceptible; guinea-pigs somewhat less so. Eats 

 were found to be capable of resisting a considerable quantity. It was also observed 

 by Davaine that decomposing blood lost its virulent properties when exposed to the 

 air in a few days ; out of 27 animals inoculated with 1 to x^Tyth of a drop of 

 blood, which had stood from 1 to 10 days, 12 died, whereas out of 26 animals 

 inoculated with like material which had stood from 11 to 60 days only 1 

 perished, t 



* Compti'is Rendus, t. Ixxxv, p. 101, 16th July, 1877. 



-f- "Inoculation de la matiere septique: " Bulletin de VAcademie de Science, November 1872, January 1873; 

 cited by Birch-Hirschfeld, loc. cit., pa^e 173. 



