406 BACTERIOLOGY. 



from twenty-four to forty-eight hours. The blood 

 drawn from the animal just before death contained the 

 living bacteria of putrefaction, and underwent decom- 

 position. They attributed the germicidal phenomenon 

 to the action of the " ozonized oxygen of the corpuscles 

 of the blood." 



In 1882 Rauschenbach ^ demonstrated that, in the 

 process of coagulation, fibrin was formed not as a 

 specific product of the action of the colorless elements 

 of the blood alone, but also as a result of the combined 

 action between all animal protoplasm and healthy 

 blood-plasma, and that in the process there was always 

 a disintegration of the leucocytes that were present. 

 In 1884 Groth'' demonstrated further that such a dis- 

 integration of leucocytes occurred in normal circulating 

 blood, though here it was not accompanied by coagu- 

 lation. The results of these observations suggested 

 the question : Does such a disintegration occur when 

 vegetable protoplasm is introduced into the blood ? For 

 the purpose of answering this question, Grohmann,^ a 

 pupil of Alexander Schmidt, undertook to study the 

 action of the circulating blood upon the vegetable pro- 

 toplasm of bacteria. 



He noticed that clotting of the blood of the horse 

 was very much accelerated by the addition to it of cer- 

 tain bacteria, and that at the same time the develop- 

 ment of the bacteria was checked, and in the case of 

 the pathogenic varieties their virulence was diminished. 



1 Ueber die Wechselwirkung zwlschen Protoplasma und Blutplasma. Dis- 

 sertation, Dorpat, 1882, 



^ Ueber die Scbicksale der farblosen Elemente in kreisendem Blut. Disser- 

 tation, Dorpat, 1884. 



3 Ueber die Einwirkung des zellenfreien Blutplasma auf einige pflanzlicfae 

 Mikro-organismen. Dissertation, Dorpat, 1884. 



