INTRODUCTION 1 1 



internal purulent collections in pyemia and septicemia was first 

 definitely recognized by Rindfleisch (1870), but more especially 

 by Klebs in a large number of cases at the military hospital at 

 Karlsruhe. The latter observed spherical bacteria arranged in 

 groups or as a rosary, to which he gave the name Microsporon 

 septicum. His observations were quickly confirmed by other 

 competent pathologists. Similar organisms were soon found 

 in a great many wounds and other inflammatory processes. 

 Specific causal relationship was still unproven. 



In 1873 Obermeier described the slender but actively motile 

 spirochetes seen by him in the btood in relapsing fever as early 

 as 1868. 



In 1874 Billroth concluded that there was still no disease in 

 which the causal relationship of micro-organisms had been con- 

 clusively proven. The skin diseases due to molds were relatively 

 unimportant and had not been recently studied. The microbes 

 found in other diseases might just as reasonably be regarded as 

 a product of the disease or as only incidental to it. Even in 

 anthrax, where the evidence seemed strongest, there were cases 

 of the disease without the presence of the peculiar rod-like bodies 

 in^the blood, and indeed these rods might be crystals and not 

 living organisms at all. 



Since 1867 Lister, stimulated by the investigations of Pasteur 

 on fermentation and putrefaction, had been developing and 

 applying an antiseptic method to the treatment of wounds, 

 which consisted of the use of carbolic acid. The results of this 

 method published in 1875 were so remarkably favorable that it 

 was quickly adopted throughout the world, and its success did 

 much to prepare the way for the recognition of the r61e of microbes 

 in suppuration, if it did not in itself convince. 



Robert Koch, 1876-1881, first satisfied the postulates laid 

 down by Henle, and again formulated by himself, in the bacterial 

 disease,' Anthrax. The presence of the bacilli in the blood of 

 animals suffering from anthrax had been established by a large 

 number of previous workers, and the transmissibility of the dis- 



