434 THE BACILLUS OF TYPHOID FEVER. 
ply in the spleen after death, and that numerous colonies may be 
found in portions of the organ which have been kept for twenty- 
four to forty-eight hours before they were placed in alcohol, when 
other pieces from the same spleen placed in alcohol soon after the 
death of the patient show but few colonies or none at all. 
This observation does not in any way weaken the evidence as to 
the etiological réle of the bacillus, but simply shows that dead ani- 
mal matter is a suitable nidus for the typhoid germ—a fact which 
has been repeatedly demonstrated by epidemiologists and insisted 
upon by sanitarians. 
The authors last referred to confirm Gaffky as regards the con- 
stant presence of the bacillus in the spleen. In twenty-nine cases 
they obtained it by plate cultures twenty-five times, and remark 
that in the four cases attended with a negative result this result is 
Fig. 104. 
not at all surprising, inasmuch as the typhoid process had termi- 
nated and death resulted from complications. 
Gaffky did not succeed in obtaining cultures from the blood of 
typhoid-fever patients, and concludes from his researches that if the 
bacilli are present in the circulating fluid it must be in very small 
numbers. He remarks that possibly the result would be different if 
the blood were drawn directly from a vein instead of from the capil- 
laries of the skin. Frankel and Simmonds also report that gelatin, 
to which blood drawn from the forefinger of typical cases had been 
added, remained sterile when poured upon plates in the usual man- 
ner—Koch’s method. The blood was obtained from six different in- 
dividuals, all in an early stage of the disease—the second to the 
third week. A similar experiment made with blood obtained, post 
mortem, from the large veins or from the heart, also gave a negative 
result in every instance save one. In the exceptional case a single 
