202 DISEASES OF THE DIGESTIVE APPARATUS. 



sufficiently close to induce us to combine them under the title of 

 mycotic gastro-enteritis. All have the same origin and pathology : 

 they are produced by injurious matters, the action of which is first 

 felt upon the digestive canal, and, secondly, upon the different 

 organic apparatus. The active principle which they engender 

 probably operates through a double mechanism : first, through 

 infection, or multiplication of the micro-organisms which they con- 

 tain ; secondly, through a septic or putrid intoxication, in which 

 certain chemical compounds generated by microbic activity con- 

 stitute the principal pathogenic factor. The latter have received 

 the name of " septines,'' *^ ptomaines," and ^' cadaveric alkaloids.'' 

 Mycotic gastro-enteritis can thus be defined : An intestinal affection 

 accompanied by general disturbances, produced through the invasion 

 of pathogenic micro-organisms and through the resorption of poisonous 

 ptomaines. It possesses features similar to infectious diseases and 

 gastro-enteritis produced by poisoning, between which it constitutes 

 a kind of intermediary morbid condition. We could, in fact, con- 

 nect the poisonings produced by meat with septicemia or putrid 

 infection — that is to say, with infectious diseases — and the fungi 

 intoxications with the poisonings produced by acrid narcotics. 



The serious cerebral symptoms and the rapidity of the course of 

 mycotic gastro-enteritis have caused it to be designated by the name 

 of "intestinal typhus." Some authors have classified it with the 

 abdominal typhus of man — a relation which is absolutely arbitrary, 

 for there does not exist any similarity between these two diseases. 



We shall describe in succession mycotic gastro-enteritis in car- 

 nivorous and omnivorous animals, and also in poultry, which is 

 produced by the ingestion of decomposed meats, and at the same 

 time that variety occurring in herbivorous animals after ingestion 

 of fungous plants (moulds, rust, or black rust). 



Ptomaines. We designate under the name of ptomaines all 

 organic bases of microbic origin (Brieger). These bases are not 

 only produced in the cadaver, but there are some which are formed 

 in the living organism ; these have been given the more restricted 

 denomination of leucomaines. In the majority of infectious diseases 

 (anthrax, hydrophobia, etc.), the leucomaines produced by microbic 

 waste products determine by their poisonous action the principal 

 symptoms of these diseases. 



According to Hoppe-Seyler, the ptomaines are formed when the 

 excess of oxygen is insufficient or hindered. Under physiological 



