CHAPTER XIII 

 ANAEROBIC ORGANISMS 



TETANUS MALIGNANT (EDEMA BLACK QUARTER- 

 BACILLUS WELCHII (AEROGENES CAPSULATUS, EN- 

 TERITIDIS SPOROGENES) BACILLUS CADAVERIS 

 SPOROGENES CLOSTRIDIUM BUTYRICUM 



Tetanus 



THE causation of tetanus was for a long time involved in mystery. 

 No obvious or characteristic changes being met with after death, 

 the disease was regarded by many as "functional." Others 

 believed that a primary lesion of the central nervous system might 

 be the cause of the affection, while a few classed it with the specific 

 diseases. 



It had long been noticed that wounds soiled with earth were 

 specially prone to be followed by tetanus, and Sternberg in 1880, 

 and Nicolaier in 1884, produced tetanus in rabbits by introducing 

 a little garden earth beneath the skin. The latter observer found 

 at the seat of inoculation and in his impure cultures for he was 

 unable to obtain pure ones a distinctive bacillus, and he was able 

 with these cultures, and with the pus from the seat of inoculation, 

 to induce tetanus in other animals. Carle and Rattone subsequently 

 showed that the bacillus of Nicolaier was present in the tissues of, 

 and secretions from, the wound, in cases of traumatic tetanus in 

 man, and that inoculation with the pus from such a wound pro- 

 duced tetanus in the lower animals observations which were con- 

 firmed by Rosenbach in 1885. The bacillus was isolated in pure 

 culture by Kitasato in 1889 by taking the impure cultures obtained 

 from the wound in a case of traumatic tetanus, heating to 80 C., 

 and plating the heated cultures, the plates being incubated 

 anaerobically in hydrogen. 



419 



