1890.] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 239 



MEDICAL MICROSCOPY. 



By F. BLANCHARD, M. D., 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 



Bacteria and their Products. — In bacteriology the scientists of 

 the present chiy are doing such work as Linnaeus did in the domain 

 of pha^nogamic botany. We are discovering new forms, observing, 

 describing, and reaching out towards a system of classification. The 

 subject is many-sided and the study fascinating. 



No other phase of this work is of such intense interest to the 

 thoughtful physician as that which relates to the by-products of bacterial 

 growth and their role in pathogenic processes. For some time it was 

 held that the presence of bacteria within the body of the host was 

 directly productive of disease. Then it began to be suspected that the 

 ptomaines and leucomaines generated by the growth of these minute 

 plants was the causative agent in producing the so-called zymotic dis- 

 eases. Which of these views is correct.^ This is the question which 

 bacteriologists are trying to answer. 



If we could inject into the blood of a patient in the second week of 

 typhoid fever a harmless germicide which would at once destroy every 

 branch and spore of the bacillus of typhoid fever, would that abort the 

 disease, or might the patient still die in coma from the narcotic effect 

 of the alkaloidal substance already generated.^ 



If these alkaloidal by-products are the real foe to health and life, tlien 

 we may administer drugs, not to kill bacteria, but to antidote the alka- 

 loidal poison. The bacteria, having exhausted the soil on which they 

 at first flourished, will die and be excreted, and the patient will recover. 



For the present all we can do is to experiment, collate facts, and 

 think. It is certain that the blood of animals suftering from such dis- 

 eases as charbon, does contain a very powerful chemical poison. It 

 would be of value to learn whether the blood contains a less proportion 

 of this poison in a mild case than in a severe case. Aurep obtained 

 such a poison (Prof. John A. Miller in Buffalo Med. Jour.) from the 

 brains of hydrophobic rabbits. The eflect of small doses of this poison 

 corresponded to the first stages of h3'drophobia, and of larger doses to the 

 latter stages. Behring claims that iodoform is valuable, not because it 

 is a germicide, but because it is a chemical antidote to the ptomaine 

 cadaverine. 



At first thought we should prefer to be inoculated with cholera germs 

 rather than with cobra poison ; but the natives of India use the cobra 

 poison in treating cholera, and Surgeon-General Hamilton has lately 

 shown that the cobra poison is fatal to cholera germs. The Homoeop- 

 athists also use the poison of the lance-headed viper in treating cholera, 

 and the poison of a species of rattle-snake in yellow fever. Possibly 

 these poisons are of value, not as germicides, but as antidotes. 



Diphtheria. — Recent investigations by Babes, Piscariu, and Max 

 Beck (Zeit fiir Hygiene, vol. viii, part 3d), strongly confirm the theory 

 that the bacillus of Lceffler is the specific cause of diphtheria. The two 

 former experimenters produced true dipiitheria in doves by inoculations 

 with pure cultures of this bacillus. Beck, of Tubingen, examined the 

 mouths and throats of 66 healthv children, and of 64 other persons who 

 were sick with follicular angina and other diseases of the throat, mouth, 



