POLYMORPHISM OF MICROBES. 283 



Such are Bacterium termo and Bacillus subtilis, the 

 microbes of putrefaction, those of the sweat of feet, 

 etc., of which we have spoken above ; such, again, is 

 the bacillus of Biichner's meat infusion, that of Sattler's 

 jequirity, and finally, Grawitz's Aspergillus, mentioned 

 in this chapter. 



These various microbes, inoculated or injected into 

 blood, may indeed produce different disorders, which 

 in some cases always remain local (oedema) ; in others 

 are limited to metastatic centres encysted in various 

 organs — the liver, kidneys, lungs, etc. ; or, again, they 

 may produce a general infection of the blood, as in the 

 septicemia produced by Davaine when he inoculated 

 rabbits with the fluid of putrid beef. These rabbits 

 died within two days, and their blood was found to 

 be full of Bacterium termo. The same result has been 

 obtained by Pasteur and Koch, by merely inoculating 

 guinea-pigs and mice with a little putrid earth or 

 water, in which the same organism was evidently 

 present.' But in no case a disease with distinct cha- 

 racters was produced by this means, with special 

 symptoms, epidemic or contagious, analogous to those 

 of erysipelas, anthrax, tuberculosis, or cholera. Hence 

 the name of experimental septicemia, since these 

 diseases do not exist in nature. 



On the other hand, those microbes are termed 

 pathogenic which always characterize by their 

 presence a special disease, epidemic or contagious, and 

 possessing special symptoms and lesions, whether this 



