BACTERIA AND THEIR ALLIES 167 



nearest lymphatic glands, some of them would ultimately find their 

 way into the blood. When there, the view generally accepted 

 is, as I have said, that the Bacteria and their allies are at once 

 " destroyed." The blood of healthy animals is declared to be 

 germless, and much importance is attached to the germicidal 

 qualities of this fluid. 



It has, however, been held by Tiegel, Burdon Sanderson and 

 others that though the blood is germless, "those parts of the 

 animal body which are in closest proximity to absorbing mucous 

 membranes are most liable to be found pregnant with microphytic 

 life when tested by suitable methods." ' Their experiments showed 

 indeed that such organs as kidney, spleen and liver, when removed 

 from the body of a healthy animal immediately after its death, and 

 suitably treated, could always be made to reveal the presence of 

 microorganisms. 



But cutting out portions of internal organs of recently killed 

 animals, enveloping them with superheated paraffin, and then 

 placing them in an incubator at a suitable temperature, followed 

 by the finding of swarms of Bacteria in the central red and 

 uncooked portions, is not a method that can possibly give us 

 certain information as to the mode of origin of the organisms 

 found. It may be, as Burdon Sanderson and others concluded, 

 that the organisms found came from " germs which existed and 

 retained their latent vitality in the living tissues " ; but it is, at 

 least, equally possible, as I maintain, that they may have had a 

 heterogenetic origin within these tissues themselves. 



It seems perfectly clear that experiments of this kind, if 

 carried no further, could teach us nothing decisively ; that their 

 results, in fact, are of no more value than those that may be 

 obtained by the examination of the brain and its membranes 

 three or four days after a healthy animal ha.s been killed. There 

 also swarms of microorganisms would be found, as I can testify ; 

 and if bacteriologists are right that organisms and their germs 

 are, as they say, " destroyed " in the blood, we could only con- 

 clude that the organisms so found must have been produced by 

 archebiosis or by heterogenesis. It could not reasonably be said 

 that the organisms naturally present in the intestinal canal have 

 been enabled to spread through the body so as to reach the 

 most remote parts after death — since many of the organisms are 



■ " British Medical Journal," 1875, vol. i., p. 199. 



