fxiii.] Erysipelas. Trachoma. 169 



us it would seem that Streptococcus and Staphylococcus aureus 

 are the most common and the most destructive kinds. Rosen- 

 bach obtained positive results from inoculations and injections 

 of pure culture-material obtained from men in several experi- 

 ments on animals, that is, the introduction of the parasite caused 

 fresh abscesses, though, if I rightly understand the accounts, 

 large quantities of matter were employed in inoculation. 



The above Bacilli and Micrococci are facultative parasites, 

 and may be cultivated as saprophytes without difficulty and in 

 abundance. No details are known with respect to their diffusion 

 as saprophytes in nature, but experience of a more general kind 

 makes it probable that these formidable foes exist everywhere, 

 and especially in places of human resort; Passet has in fact 

 found two of them (Staphylococcus aureus and S. albus) in 

 dish-water and in putrid meat. 



7. The Micrococcus which makes its way into the lymphatic 

 ducts of the skin and is the contagium of erysipelas (63) is 

 closely allied in respect of its shape and facultative parasitism 

 to the forms of the preceding section, and is in effect a chain- 

 forming Streptococcus. We owe our earlier knowledge of this 

 organism to von Recklinghausen and Lukomski. Fehleisen 

 has recently grown it in a pure state, and his inoculations with 

 it were successful. The unpleasant though not dangerous 

 affection of the skin of the hands, known as erythema migrans 

 or finger-erysipelas, to which those are liable who have to 

 handle raw meat, has been referred by Rosenbach to a Micro- 

 coccus (62). 



8. A distinct species of Micrococcus, capable of cultivation 

 and of being conveyed by inoculation with production of the 

 characteristic disease is according to Sattler's investigation (64) 

 the contagium of trachoma, the granulose inflammation of the 

 conjunctiva of the human eye. It may be added that another 

 disease of the conjunctiva of the eye, xerosis conjunctivae, is 

 attributed to a small rod-bacterium as its exciting cause (65). 



A Micrococcus forming short rows of cells in thick broad 



