510 BACTERIOLOGY. 
membranes complicating pneumonia; but two cases in 
particular have been reported by Thue of pleurisy and 
pericarditis following pneumonia in which the lymph 
capillaries have been found to be chock-full of diplo- 
cocci, as if injected. Their presence in the blood after 
death has been amply proved by numerous investiga- 
tions. In many instances they have been recovered 
from the blood during life. Lambert, as a rule, found 
them in all fatal cases twenty-four to forty-eight hours 
before death. This examination has considerable prog- 
nostic value, as nearly all cases in which the pneumo- 
coccus is found end fatally. This micrococcus has 
been shown experimentally to be capable of producing 
various forms of septicemia—local phlegmonous in- 
flammations, peritonitis, pleuritis, and meningitis. A 
further proof of the transmission of this organism by 
means of the blood is given by Fod and Bordoni- 
Uffreduzzi in their investigations into intra-uterine 
infection in pneumonia and meningitis. These in- 
vestigators have demonstrated the presence of the 
micrococcus lanceolatus in foetal and placental blood 
and in the uterine sinuses in maternal pneumonia. 
There being no question, therefore, as to the pos- 
sibility of the conveyance of the infective agent by 
means of the blood and the lymph to all parts of the 
body, we need not wonder at the multiplicity of the 
affections complicating pneumonia which are caused by 
this micrococcus ; and not only the secondary, but also 
the primary diseases, as of the brain and the meninges, 
may be explained in the same way. Knowing that the 
saliva and nasal secretions under normal conditions so 
frequently afford a resting-place for the micrococci, we 
have only to assume the production of a suitable culture 
