THE BACTERIA IN SURGICAL LESIONS. 179 



the humors which contain them, without, however, 

 as a rule, exercising any toxic action upon the 

 organism ; 5. The author is far from rejecting the 

 possible intervention of vibrios in the pathology 

 of purulent infection ; and he explains the happy 

 exemption of infants from septicemia, in a majority 

 of cases, by the fact that these organisms are not 

 found in the pus of abscesses in young children. 



The conclusions of the memoir of M. Bergeron 

 were the object of earnest discussions. According 

 to the accepted theory, there ought never to be a 

 development of organisms, unless the germs had 

 been introduced from the air; if, then, we admit 

 the correctness of these observations, the explana- 

 tion given by Pasteur breaks down. Let us add, 

 that many times, by the bedside of the patient, 

 the microscope has furnished results absolutely 

 contradictory. Sometime before M. Bouloumie - 

 had formally established, as the result of long con- 

 tinued researches, that pus coming from any col- 

 lection whatever, not in communication, directly 

 or indirectly, with an open wound, never contained 

 organized elements, mobile or motionless, which 

 can be considered as microzoa, or microphytes, 

 except some highly-refractive moving points, often 

 joined together in pairs. 



We dare not say that the long discussions to 

 which these communications have given rise have 

 thrown any light upon the grave problems which 

 they have attempted to resolve. Let it suffice 

 for us to have pointed out these different points 

 of view. 



