TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. — DEPT. ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 417 



sealed, ancTtwo others, each containing muscles, were (being found rather too short) 

 left closed with cotton- wool only, which, for security sake, was afterwards covered 

 with a cap of resin and wax cement. 



The tubes were filled and sealed on September 2, 1878, and left in a tempera- 

 ture averaging 60° Fahr. On the 9th, tubes Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4, containing muscle, 

 showed minute hairs of mycelium projecting in one or two places from the flesh. 

 In Nos. 1, 2, and 3 the mycelium never fruited, but disappeared with an increase 

 of the moisture of the_ flesh. In No. 4— which was one of those stopped with 

 wool only— it fruited into a yellow-headed mucor and then disappeared in a 

 softening d<§bris of evidently putrid flesh. I opened the tube, its contents were 

 foetid and held myriads of active bacteria, large and small. 



The brain remained quite unchanged for ten days, and then suddenly softened 

 and broke down, thus leaving but one of my six specimens intact. On my return 

 home, a few days ago, I found this one altogether unchanged, and I embrace this 

 opportunity of exhibiting it, a piece of muscle which appeared to have neither held 

 or received infection. 



Although Nos. 1, 2, and 3 developed mycelium and extruded a quantity of 

 slightly glairy fluid almost equal in bulk to the flesh, it is remarkable that they did 

 not become putrid. I opened one of them three days ago ; it had an odour like 

 boiled rabbit and catchup, and was most decidedly not offensive. It, like the 

 others, was speckled over with white aggregations, which I at first thought were 

 fungoid, but on examination found to be bunches of acicular crystals entirely 

 organia They are insoluble in alcohol or ether, like creatin, but only slightly 

 soluble in warm water. They dissolve in sulphuric acid without blackening. I 

 had not enough of them to examine further. I could not find any bacteria in the 

 fluid, and it was decidedly free from any in an active condition. 



The apparatus not being portable, circumstances rendered it impossible for me 

 to continue experiments on flesh ; but 1 endeavoured to follow up the subject of 

 septic organisms in living tissues by observations on blood removed from human 

 veins, by a method which appears to exclude possibility of infection, and at the 

 same time allows the blood to be examined at different intervals, so that germs, if 

 any exist in it, may be cultivated and studied with convenience. 



The apparatus consists of a series of small glass bidbs connected by capillary 

 tubes, so that one bulb and its contents can be separated from the rest by fusing 

 and drawing out the connecting tube in the flame of a blowpipe. 



The tubes and bulbs are bent on each other, so that the whole series can be 

 readily baked in a water or paraffin bath. One end of the series is left open, 

 packed with baked wool, and connected with an aspirator. The other is drawn to a 

 fine point and sealed. Then the sealed point is enclosed and secured in a short 

 piece of stout indiarubber connection-pipe, which, in its turn, is fastened over the 

 collar of a fine hypodermic needle, protected ready for use in a calcined glass 

 sheath. 



_ When connected, the whole arrangement is baked repeatedly in a water-bath 

 at intervals of four hours. (Mr. Dallinger's septic organism required 5£ hours for 

 its life cycle. Oossar Ewart's bacillus anthracis produced spores in 24 hours.) 

 The apparatus is then ready for use. The mode of procedure is as follows :— The 

 sheath is removed from the needle, and the latter is plunged into any suitable vein 

 —the radial is a convenient one. The sealed point inside the rubber connection 

 tube is broken, and blood flows gently through the series of bulbs drawn on by the 

 aspirator acting through the cotton plug. When sufficient has entered, the flame 

 of a blow-pipe severs the capillary tube next the needle, and instantly afterwards 

 the similar tube next the wool plug. 



The apparatus is easily used. I have repeatedly obtained blood from my own 

 arm without assistance. No inconvenience follows the puncture of the vein if the 

 needle is kept steady and a little care exercised to prevent extravasation. 



By adopting this method I have constantly, after the lapse of 48 or more 

 hours, found organisms in the blood of intermittent fever which I was altogether 

 unable to find in the fresh blood. They consist of bacterine pairs or single indi- 

 viduals in active locomotion, sometimes stationary in zooglea groups, and occasion- 



l o^q 18 ° f four 0r more ' Tlie ghost ceUa recentlv described at the meeting 



E E 



