96 INFLAMMATION, SUPPURATION, ETC. 



sur les causes des epidemies dans les maternites. 

 Pasteur 1'interrompt de sa place : Ce qui cause 

 I'dpiddmie, ce nest rien de totit cela : cest le mddecin 

 et son personnel qui transportent le microbe dune 

 femme malade a une femme saine. Et comme 

 l'orateur repondit qu'il craignait fort qu'on ne trouve 

 jamais ce microbe, Pasteur s'elance vers le tableau 

 noir, dessine l'organisme en chapelet de grains, en 

 disant, Tenez, voici sa figure" (Roux, L'CEttvre 

 Mddicale de Pasteur. Agenda du Chimiste, 1896, 



P . 528.) 



All suppuration, and all forms of " blood- 

 poisoning " — abscesses, boils, carbuncles, erysipelas, 

 puerperal fever, septicaemia, pyaemia — are due to 

 minute organisms, various kinds of micrococcus. 

 It has indeed been shown that suppuration may, 

 in exceptional conditions, occur without micro- 

 organisms : but practically every case of suppura- 

 tion is a case of infection either from without or 

 from within the body. There is no room here for 

 any account of the work spent on these micro- 

 cocci : on their identification, isolation, culture, and 

 inoculation. It is the same with all the pathogenic 

 bacteria — each kind has its own habits, phases 

 and idiosyncrasies, antagonisms and preferences : 

 nothing is left unstudied — the influences of air, 

 light, heat, and chemistry ; all the facts of their 

 growth, division, range of variation, grades of 

 virulence, vitality, and products ; the entire life 

 and death of each species, and everything that it 

 is, and does, and can be made to do : — 



" Doubtless immense progress has been made 



