132 MICRO-ORGANISMS AND DISEASE [cHAP. 



the microbes injected ; occasionally also the blood yields, 

 in culture, colonies of the microbes, but far less numerously 

 than the peritoneal exudation ; if the animal survives 

 36 to 48 hours it as a rule recovers. The same fatal acute 

 peritonitis is produced by the bouillon mixture previously 

 sterilised at 70° C. for 5 to 10 minutes, only in this case a 

 larger dose is required than of the living mixture in order 

 to produce a fatal result. 



The same disease and the same fatal result are produced 

 by other bacteria; as the vibrio of cholera, bacillus of typhoid 

 fever, staphylococcus aureus, and bacillus pyocyaneus. 

 Bacillus coli and bacillus prodigiosus act in this respect 

 more virulently than the others, so that a smaller dose of the 

 former is required to produce the fatal peritonitis than of the 

 latter.i 



Since all these microbes act in the same way and produce 

 the same disease and post-mortein appearances, whether used 

 as living culture or as sterile culture, and since in these experi- 

 ments only the bacilli are used (the growth is scraped from the 

 surface of solid Agar), it follows that the microbes above 

 mentioned contain in their bodies similar or the same 

 poisonous substances — intracellular poisons. The curious 

 thing is that some noted pathogenic bacteria do not contain 

 these intracellular poisons, e.g., sporeless anthrax bacilli, 

 bacillus of fowl cholera, and bacillus diphtheriae can be 

 introduced as sterile bacilli in large quantities — far larger 

 than in the case of the above microbes — without producing 

 poisonous effects. Moreover the living bacillus diphtherias 

 from gelatine culture can be introduced in large quantities 



^ Subcutaneous injection of large doses produces a local swelling and 

 oedema, which may lead to suppuration and necrosis ; in the case of 

 proteus vulgaris and bacillus coli it may lead to acute general infection 

 and death. 



