AND MEDICAL SCIENCE 317 



been investigated experimentally with the greatest care.' One of 

 them, known as " Davaine's septicemia," may be originated in a 

 previously healthy animal by injecting two or three drops of putrid 

 blood (bullock's or that of any other animal) into the subcutaneous 

 tissue of a rabbit. The animal dies in from twenty-three to twenty- 

 five hours, Bacilli in myriads and of a distinctive kind existing, 

 even during life, in its blood. This constitutes the origin of a 

 disease which proves to be contagious, and so much so that it can 

 be propagated from animal to animal by even the millionth part of 

 a drop of blood, and thus on indefinitely. The other form is 

 known as " Pasteur's septicaemia" and it is producible at will in this 

 fashion. Let two or three drops of putrid bullock's blood from 

 the same stock be this time injected into the peritoneal cavity of a 

 rabbit, rather than into its subcutaneous tissue, and now a different 

 form of disease is established, though one which is also contagious 

 and equally constant in its characters. In this case the animal 

 does not die so rapidly, and while Bacilli swarm in the fluids of the 

 peritoneal cavity within twenty-four hours they are not to be found 

 at the time of death in the blood, though they appear there and 

 throughout the body in the course of a very few hours after death. 

 Another difference between these two varieties of septiccemia is 

 that though the latter form of the disease is also contagious and 

 capable of being propagated indefinitely by the inoculation of a 

 minute quantity of the peritoneal fluid, yet this fluid contains a 

 contagium which is nothing like so virulent as that contained in 

 the blood in " Davaine's septicemia." Instead of one millionth 

 of a drop, which is adequate for contagion in this latter case, it is 

 found that about a drop of the infecting peritoneal fluid is needed 

 in the case of " Pasteur's septicasmia." 



But now another and even more important point has to be 

 mentioned. It is this. We are told that absolutely no difference 

 can be detected between " Pasteur's septicasmia" and that which 

 is initiated after the manner of Burdon Sanderson by injecting a 

 small quantity of a germ-free chemical irritant into the peritoneal 

 cavity or into the subcutaneous tissue of a rabbit. Difference in 

 the site of introduction of the mere chemical irritant produces no 

 difference in the disease. Its action in either situation is to set up 

 a most virulent inflammation, the fluids of which speedily teem 



' See " Report on Experimental Investigations on the Intimate Nature of the 

 Contagium in Certain Acute Infective Diseases," by G. F. Dowdeswell, " British 

 Medical Journal," July 19, 1884, pp. 101-8. 



