40 The Farmer's Veterinary Adviser. 



of animals witli a very limited supply of air ; and tlius, too, it 

 is that some maintain and even increase their infectiousness 

 when grown in organic matter out of the body, but apart 

 from the action of the atmosphere; for example, in close 

 spaces beneath barn floors, in cesspools, closed drains, in 

 privy-vaults, in graves, in dense or clay soils, in marshy 

 ground, and in soils rich in organic matter and in which the 

 gases resulting from decomposition drive out the air. (See 

 Author's article in IS'ew York Medical Record for June 

 18, 1881). 



riiigge gives the following list of the chief products of bac- 

 teria : " Gases, as CO2, H, CH4, H^S, NH3 ; water ; sulphur / 

 volatile bodies, such as trimethylamin, alcohol, formic acid, 

 acetic acid, butyric acid ; fixed acids, as lactic acid, malic 

 acid, succinic acid, oxalic acid, tartaric acid ; sulpho-acids, as 

 taurin, amides of the fatty acids, especially leucin, alanin, 

 etc. ; bodies of the aromatic series, as tyrosin, phenol, cresol ; 

 reduction products, as indol, hydroparacumaric acid ; com- 

 plex molecules, as carbohydrates, pepton, hydrolytic fer- 

 ments ; finally, coloring matters and poisonous alkaloid 

 suh stances. ''' 



Of these the simplest bodies, at the head of which are 

 the gases, are especially the products of bacterial growth in 

 free air, and these, under the circumstances of their pro- 

 duction, are usually harmless to the animal organism. The 

 more elaborate and complex bodies, however, represented 

 especially by the poisonous alkaloids and the hydrolytic 

 ferments, are, par excellence, the product of bacteria growth 

 in albuminoid substances, and in comparative absence of air ; 

 and these are the products which are especially poisonous 

 to the animal organism. In attacking the animal economy, 

 and above all the living cells of the lymph, blood, and tis- 

 sues, the alkaloid and other poisons destroy their life, or at 

 least impair their vital powers, so that they can no longer 

 with sufficient force exercise their own protective power of 



