240 MICROBES, FERMENTS, AND MOULDS. 



multiply in immense numbers, and manufacture of 

 these materials a great quantity of septic poison, at the 

 expense of the organism in which they are developed. 



It is now admitted that the chief action of patho- 

 genic microbes, or, at any rate, of the most dangerous 

 among them, consists in the ptomaines which they 

 secrete within the body. This explains why death by 

 cholera is so rapid and even sudden, when the comma 

 bacillus is still only found in the intestines. Although 

 this micro-organism has not been absorbed by the 

 intestinal mucous membrane and carried into the 

 blood, the poisonous alkaloid, or ptomaine, which it 

 secretes is certainly present, and to this the nervous 

 symptoms, such as cramp, etc., which characterize this 

 disease, may probably be ascribed. 



Pouchet has extracted from the fseces of choleraic 

 patients, a special alkaloid of the nature of ptomaine ; 

 and quite recently, in August, 1885, he has found traces 

 of the same alkaloid in infusions of pure culture of 

 Koch's comma bacillus.* 



In conclusion, at the present stage of our know- 

 ledge, it may be admitted that the action of patho- 

 genic microbes on the system is complex, and may 

 be analyzed as follows : (1) The action of a living 



* This affords the germ of the idea of a new process for preparing 

 lymph, which has perhaps already been put in practice. A Spanish 

 physician states that the secret process employed by Ferran simply 

 consists in filtering his culture infusion by means of the Chamberland 

 filter, and using this liquid for inoculation, since it contains the 

 ptomaine of cholera without its bacillus (?). 



