282 MICROBES, FERMENTS, AND MOULDS. 
In spite of this, Sattler ascribes the pathogenic action 
of this substance to the microbe. 
Klein repeated his experiments ‘with great care, 
and was successful in solving the contradictions which 
appeared to result from Sattler’s researches. He 
proved that the bacillus of jequirity, taken by itself, 
could no more produce an infectious ophthalmia than 
Biichner’s meat bacillus could produce anthrax. The 
poisonous principle of jequirity is a chemical ferment 
(Abrine), analogous to pepsine, and independent of 
any microbe, and its assumed bacillus probably does 
not differ specifically from Bacillus subtilis. 
The transformation of an originally harmless mi- 
crobe into a pathogenic microbe is therefore not yet 
proved, and all known facts contradict the possibility 
of such a transformation. 
Septic and Pathogenic Microbes——Hence we are 
led to define, more precisely than before, the terms 
septic microbes and pathogenic microbes, which are 
in current use in bacteriology. 
The ,term “septic” is applied to the microbes or 
bacteria which generally live in decomposing organie 
matter and in dead bodies. These microbes, or their 
spores, are found in the air, in water, or the soil, in 
the mouth and intestinal canal of a healthy man or 
animal; but they are developed in greater numbers 
when the tissues are dead or in a diseased condition, 
and also in pus, in the bronchial secretion of pulmonary 
catarrh, on the surface of intestinal ulceration, ete. 
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