CONDITIONS FAYOURING FERMENTATION. 



93 



3. Facts of this second order have been thoroughly established 

 by the important researches of Professor Burdon Sanderson. He 

 says*: — "If a few drops of previously boiled and cooled dilute 

 solution of ammonia are injected underneath the skin of a guinea- 

 pig, a diffuse inflammation is produced, the exudation liquid of 

 which is found after twenty -four hours to be charged with Bac- 

 teria." " Other chemical agents," he adds, " will lead to the same 

 results, and always under conditions which preclude the possi- 

 bility of the introduction of any infecting matter from without." 



Elsewhere t the same investigator refers to experiments which 

 were made about the same time in order to throw light upon the 

 cause of the appearance of Bacteria in certain peritoneal exuda- 

 tions, and to ascertain whether or not their presence was to be 

 considered as "a mere result of the intensity of the peritonitis." 

 He says : — " To determine this experiments were made during 

 the following month (May 1871), which consisted in inducing in- 

 tense peritonitis by the injection, not of exudation liquids, but of 

 chemical irritants, particularly dilute ammonia and concentrated 

 solution of iodine in hydriodic acid. As regards the ammonia, 

 precautions were taken to guard against contamination by boil- 

 ing and cooling the liquids as well as the implements to be 

 used immediately before injection. In the case of the iodine 

 solution this was, of course, unnecessary. In every instance it 

 was found that the exudation liquids, collected from twenty-four 

 to forty-eight hours after injection, were charged with Bacteria, 

 whence it appeared probable that the existence of these organisms 

 was dependent, not on the nature of the exciting liquid by which 

 the inflammation was induced, but on the intensity of the inflam- 

 mation itself." 



From the various evidence more or less fully referred to in the 

 present section it seems to me legitimate to conclude : — 



First, that if we are to be guided by the analogy now dwelt upon 

 as existing between fermentation and zymosis, it would be per- 



guishes as Vibriones. They were not so abundant as to be always found with- 

 out careful examination; and, on the other hand, in the diseased splenic tissue 

 there were a multitude of small acicular crystals which an inexperienced 

 observer might mistake for motionless organisms. In the lower healthy por- 

 tion of the spleen no organisms were found. 



* Transactions of the Patholog. Soc. 1872, p. 306-308. 



t Reports of the Med. Officer of the Privy Council, &c., New S., No. vi,, 

 1875, p. 57. 



