y2 Infection 



and Preindelsberger,* who found eighty species of bacteria on the 

 hands. Undoubtedly many of these organisms were accidentq,lly 

 present, and were at least only semi-parasitic. Not a few were met 

 but once and were in no sens&bacteria of the skin. The skin may also 

 be temporarily contaminated with bacteria from other portions of the 

 patient's body, as, for instance, from his intestine; thus Winslowf 

 has found the colon bacillus upon the hands of ten out of one hundred 

 and eleven persons examined. WiguraJ also examined the hands 

 of forty persons in hospitals, finding tubercle bacilli in two out of 

 ten persons from phthisical wards, colon bacilli six times and typhoid 

 bacilU once on the hands of nine attendants in the typhoid wards. 

 He found streptococci and staphylococci many times. Welch § and 

 Robb and Ghriskey|| seem to have been the first to make a clear 

 differentiation between the accidentally present bacteria and the 

 permanently parasitic organisms of the skin, and to show that cer- 

 tain cocci, producing white and yellow colonies upon agar-agar, were 

 invariable in occurrence and penetrated to the lowest epidermal layers. 



These cocci, of which Welch described the most common as 

 Staphylococcus epidermidis albus, are universally and invariably 

 present upon the human skin, and must be regarded as habitual 

 parasites. 



Where the skin is pecuUar in its moisture and greasiness, however, 

 additional forms are found. Thus, in preputial smegma, in the 

 axillae, and sometimes about the lips and nostrils, a bacillary organ- 

 ism. Bacillus smegmatis, is invariable, and Schaudinn and Hoff- 

 mann** have shown that the skin of the genitalia harbors a spiral 

 organism which they call Spirochasta refringens. 



In the external auditory meatus a coccus. Micrococcus cereus flavus, 

 is almost always to be found in the waxy secretion. 



Upon the conjunctiva as many accidental organisms may be found 

 as shall have been caught by its moist surface. They do not 

 remain, however, but are quickly wiped off by the lids and driven 

 into the lachrymal sac. The researches of Hildebrand and 

 Bernheim and others seemed to show that the tears have some 

 antiseptic power and prevent the organisms from growing, so that 

 in health there are very few permanent residents of the sac, certain 

 cocci seeming to be the only constant forms. 



The mouth has been carefully studied bacteriologically by 

 Miller, ft who found six organisms— Lep to thrix innominata, 



* "Samml. medic. Schriften," herausg. von der "Wiener klin. Wochenschrift," 

 1891; XXII, Wien, "Rev. Jahresbericht iiber die Fortschritten in der Lehre von 

 den pathogenen Mikroorganismen," 1891, vii, p. 6ig. 



+ "Jour. Med. Research," vol. x, p. 463. 



I "Wratsch," 1895, No. 14. 



§ "Tansactions of the Congress of American Physicians and Surgeons." 

 i8qi, II, p. I. 



II "Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital," 1892, iii, p. 37. 

 ** "Deutsche med. Woch.," May 5, 1905. 



tt "Micro-organisms of the Human Mouth," Phila., 1800. 



