42 The Farmer's Yetennary Adviser. 



are passed out of the vessels, into the affected tissue, 

 and meanwhile the original fixed oells of that tissue also 

 undei'go a rapid multiplication, so that the inflamed part 

 soon becomes a centre of extraordinarily active cell-growth. 

 In many cases the defence is successful and the invading 

 bacteria are devoured or thrown off in a mass of pus, or in 

 a circumscribed slough. In others, the accumulating cells 

 which constitute the army of defence sink under the lethal 

 power of the bacteria products, and the bacteria invasion is 

 carried into the entire system. 



That bacteria attack the vital powers in other ways is 

 undoubted. The production of the poisons above named, 

 by the decomposition of the albuminoid tissues of the body, 

 implies the destruction of these important tissues, the im- 

 pairment of function and of the strength, and, it may be, 

 death or long-standing debility. In other cases, as in the 

 case of the Bacillus anthracis, they abstract oxygen from the 

 red blood-globules, and reduce the blood to a venous con- 

 dition in which it can no longer nourish the body nor 

 maintain the vital functions, and hence speedy death is the 

 rule in that infection. In still other cases, illustrated again 

 by the Bacillus anthracis, the bacteria accumulate in the 

 lymph- and blood-vessels in such numbers as to block the 

 vessels and stop circulation in the part affected, and bring 

 about a corresponding train of evil consequences. 



Wyssokowitsch found that, in case of a survival of bacteria 

 injected into the blood, they passed in part into the white 

 blood-globules, and were arrested mainly in the liver, spleen, 

 kidney, and marrow of bone ; unless, indeed, the particular 

 germ had a predilection for a special organ. In these dif- 

 ferent organs they had passed into the cells (endothelial) 

 lining the capillary blood-vessels. lie even attributes the 

 prolonged latency of certain contagious diseases to the lodg- 

 ment of the germs in an inactive condition for a length of 

 time in these endothelial cells. This, however, lacks con- 



