1883.] On the Infectivity of the Blood and other Fluids. 457 



autumn months, it is generally obtained in two or three trials ; in the 

 winter I have also obtained it ; but during the present winter (1882) 

 I have failed in numerous attempts. In putrid blood, not too old, a 

 large number of septic microphytes of many different forms may be 

 observed ; in cases when such blood proved infective, I have some- 

 times, though not always, been able to recognise the specific organism 

 herein described as invariably occurring in the blood of infected 

 animals, and apparently constituting the actual contagium of the 

 disease, though they were never numerous ; but in these cases when 

 the blood did not prove specifically infective, I never in one instance 

 could recognise them, often as they were sought for. Davaine states 

 that blood taken fresh and kept at a temperature of about 38° C. for 

 forty-eight hours,* becoming putrid, is as virulently infective as 

 blood in the later generations of transmitted infection, in the rabbit, 

 viz., in the hundred-millionth of a drop or less. In several experi- 

 ments, made at different times and places, I found that such blood, 

 though rapidly developing a variety of septic bacteria, was not speci- 

 fically infective in any case, even when injected in quantities of some 

 drops ; neither in such blood did I ever find the specific organism, 

 although sometimes, and in one instance most conspicuously, there 

 were present a large number of bacteria proper, very similar in 

 appearance to the specific organism here in question, from which in 

 fresh or unstained preparations it is somewhat difficult to distinguish, 

 but when stained after the usual methods they were found on measure- 

 ment, to be fully double the size in breadth of the others, and with a 

 perceptible difference in form. But few other species were observed 

 in these cases ; that which was present is the JB. termo of Cohn, 

 usually the first to develope in putrefying animal or vegetable 

 matter, they very shortly disappear and are replaced by other forms. 

 Not having succeeded during these latter experiments in getting 

 infection, I was unable to try the effect of inoculating fresh blood 

 from the infection, and then incubating or artificially putrefying it. 



The fact above referred to as established by MM. Coze and Feltz, 

 and Davaine, was in the year 1872 further extended by the experi- 

 ments of Drs. Sanderson and Klein,f in this country, who showed 

 that by injection into the peritoneal cavity of an animal, either of 

 various pathological products or, ultimately of a chemical irritant, 

 itself free from living organisms, or even parasiticidal, and with anti- 

 septic precautions, an inflammatory affection was induced, the exuda- 

 tion products of which, always abounding in micro-organisms, pro- 

 duced on inoculation into other animals similar symptoms, with the 

 recurrence of the same microphytes. Further, it was thought that in 



* " Bull. Acad. Med.," Oct. 8, 1872. 



f " Med. Chir. Trans.," vol. lvi, p. 345, &c. 



