Die Parasiten der Infectionskrankheiten. 21 
itself are there found. The liver is excited to excessive secretion, 
the product of which distends to excess the channels and reser- 
voirs of the bile, and fills the intestines. It is not unusual to find 
cases of icterus in man thus accompanied by excessive biliary se- 
cretion. 
That the greatest facility exists for admixture of bile with 
the blood is shown by the repletion of the reticulum of bile ducts 
in immediate contact with the capillaries of the liver, as well as 
by the abundance of bile exposed to absorption by the mucous 
membrane of the intestines. In the experiments of Dr. Randall 
in which rabbits were fed upon bread soaked in the bile of the 
Texas disease, death ensued in from one to four weeks, according 
to the amount of bile consumed. In these experiments the poison 
was absorbed by the mucous membrane of the alimentary canal. 
The stomach was found ulcerated and containing extravasated 
blood, the liver was softened and fatty, the bile was of a bright 
claret color, and contained coagula; the kidneys were deeply con- 
gested; thus death was caused by the absorption of bile, with many 
of the phenomena of the Texas disease in a chronic form. 
The only alternative to this admission of the vitiation of the 
blood by bile is the hypothesis that the destruction of the bloodcor- 
puscles through another agent — that of the infection, for example 
— permits an accumulation of haematoidine, or of the coloring mat- 
ter of the bile in the blood, beyond the capacity of the liver to 
remove it. The yellow flocculi of the liquor sanguinis and the 
spleen would, however, be inexplicable on this hypothesis, while 
their formation through the agency of the liver is manifest. 
Quite early in this investigation my attention was attracted to 
the existence in the diseased bile of minute vegetable germs, which 
multiplied abundantly in the various specimens of bile prepared for 
analysis. They existed in the form of spherical or irregular ag- 
gregations of micrococcus, the nature of which could be determined 
only by the employment of the highest powers of the microscope, 
and by studying their development. They were found in fresh 
blood and bile, but with difficulty. In specimens of bile collected 
in the evening, they would be found abundantly in the morning; 
the white color of their aggregations contrasting with the yellow 
hue of the flocculi of the bile to which they were attached, and 
from which they seemed to be derived, their abundance being such 
as to preclude the idea of their derivation from any other source 
