378 PYOGENIC BACTERIA. 
quantity of an agar culture was suspended in 0.5-per-cent salt solu. 
tion, and this was rubbed upon the uninjured skin of the left fore- 
arm. By gentle scratching with a disinfected finger nail the epithe- 
lium was removed in places over the area to which the micrococcus 
had been applied. As a result of this procedure numerous impe- 
tigo pustules and occasionally a genuine furuncle developed. Por- 
tions of the skin containing the smaller pustules were excised and 
examined microscopically. As a result of this examination Bock- 
hart concluded that the cocci penetrate by way of the hair follicles, 
the sebaceous and sudoriparous glands, or, where the epidermis had 
been removed by scratching, directly to the deeper layers of the skin. 
In Bumm’s experiments, made upon himself and several other 
persons, Staphylococcus aureus suspended in sterilized salt solution 
was injected beneath the skin. An abscess resulted in every case. 
The very extended researches made by bacteriologists during the 
past five or six years show that the golden staphylococcus is the 
most common pyogenic microérganism. Its presence has been de- 
monstrated not only in furuncles and carbuncles, but also in various 
pustular affections of the skin and mucous membranes—impetigo, 
sycosis, phlyctenular conjunctivitis ; in purulent conjunctivitis and 
inflammation of the lacrymal sac; in acute abscesses formed in the 
lymphatic glands, the parotid gland, the tonsils, the mamme, etc. ; 
in metastatic abscesses and purulent collections in the joints ; in em- 
pyema ; in infectious osteomyelitis ; and in ulcerative endocarditis. 
The evidence relating to its presence and etiological import in the 
last-mentioned affections demands special consideration. 
Infectious osteomyelitis appears from the researches of Becker, 
Rosenbach, Krause, Passet, and others, to be usually due to the pre- 
sence of Staphylococcus aureus, although Kraske has shown that in 
certain cases this is associated with other microédrganisms. Becker, 
who obtained this micrococcus from the pus of osteomyelitis in 1883, 
was the first to show by experiment that the same affection might be 
induced in rabbits by injecting cultures of the micrococcus into the 
circulation, after having crushed or fractured a bone in one of its 
legs. The animal usually died in from twelve to fourteen days and 
presented the usual appearances of osteomyelitis at the fractured 
point. The abundant yellowish-white pus contained the golden 
staphylococcus which was described by Becker, and subsequently 
known in the bacteriological laboratories of Germany as the ‘‘ mi- 
crococcus of infectious osteomyelitis.” Becker’s experimental re- 
sults have been confirmed by Krause and Rosenbach; and Rodet, by 
injecting smaller quantities of a culture into the circulation, has suc- 
ceeded in producing an osteomyelitis without previous injury to the 
bone. 
