384 Dr. H. Charlton-Bastian on the Origin 
within brief periods, and if no carrier exists, they must 
naturally have been born in or near many of the sites in 
which after death they are speedily to be found. 
If bacteriologists are right in their view that the blood is 
eermless in healthy animals because any germs or organisms 
obtaining access thereto are straightway killed, there seems 
no escape from the foregoing conclusion. 
It has, however, been held by Tiegel, Burdon Sanderson, 
and others that though the blood is germless, “ those parts of 
the animal body which are in closest proximity to absorbing 
mucous membranes are most liable to be found pregnant with 
microphytic life when tested by suitable methods” *. ‘Their 
experiments showed, indeed, that such organs as kidney, 
spleen, and liver, when removed from the body of a healthy 
animal immediately after its death and suitably treated, could 
always be made to reveal the presence of microorganisms, 
But cutting out portions of internal organs of recently 
killed animals, enveloping them with superheated paraffine, 
and then placing them in an incubator at a suitable tempera- 
ture, followed by the finding of swarms of Bacteria in the 
central red and uncooked portions is not a method that can 
possibly give us certain information as to the mode of origin 
of the organisms found. It may be, as Burdon Sanderson 
and others concluded, that the organisms found came from 
“ oerms which existed and retained their latent vitality in 
the living tissues”; but it is equally possible, as I maintain, 
that they may have had a heterogenetic origin within these 
tissues themselves. 
It seems perfectly clear that experiments of this kind, if 
carried no further, could teach us nothing decisively, that 
their results, in fact, are of no more value than those that 
may be obtained by the examination of the brain and its 
membranes three or four days after a healthy animal has 
been killed. There also swarms of microorganisms would be 
found, as I can testify; and if bacteriologists are right 
that organisms and their germs are, as they say, “ destroyed ” 
in the blood, we could only conclude that the organisms so 
found must have been produced by archebiosis or by hetero- 
genesis. 
In regard to plants—that is, fruits and vegetables of 
different kinds—the case is not so complicated, and Pasteur 
may have been perfectly right in declaring that, when healthy, 
their tissues are germless. ‘Thus, in considering the inter- 
pretation of cases in which microorganisms are found in the 
* Brit. Med. Journal, 1875, vol. i. p. 199; see also 1878, vol. i, p. 119, 
