140 



H. F. Formad, 



Our own cells (lymphoid cells) become dislodged from their natural 

 location and move into other regions of the tissues, where they are 

 not wanted, and where they do harm to the tissue they invade and 

 still more to themselves. They, however, continue to move through 

 the body (as it seems, mainly by means of the perivascular spaces, 

 the lymph -spaces proper being blocked up), everywhere leaving on 

 their way small colonies of breeding cells which block up vital channels. 

 These colonies of cells do not find enough nourishment in the new 

 locations, and hence remain usually limited in size. Now the cells 

 move closer together, forming nodes, to feed upon one another, and 

 finally die and poison their host with the effete products of their 

 bodies (cheesy degeneration). 



The ubiquitous bacteria, which (the bacillus included) linger 

 around in countless number upon all surfaces without the least harm 

 to a normal individual, easily penetrate a diseased tissue and make 

 it a nidus for their growth. Young unripe cells created by morbid 

 processes, frequently giant cells, which under favourable conditions would 

 have been transformed into a harmless connective tissue, from want 

 of proper nutrition undergo retrograde change, and thus fall a prey 

 to bacteria. While normal cells cannot be affected by bacteria (ex- 

 cept by the anthrax bacillus, perhaps), morbid cells do form (as I have 

 myself seen) a good culture-medium for large crops of bacteria. Va- 

 rious kinds of bacteria (micrococci, rod-bacteria, bacilli, and vibrios or 

 their spores) are present together in varying proportions everywhere. 

 Different culture-media favour, however, the development of different 

 kinds of bacteria : so all those new formations liable to cheesy change 

 favour the predominant growth of bacilli Here belong tubercle, leprosy, 

 glanders, lupus, typhoid infiltrations, syphilis, swine plague, and an- 

 thrax. Micrococci prefer the living blood and its white corpuscles as 

 a medium for luxuriant development, if they succeed in getting access 

 to it. The exanthemata, the fatal forms of diphtheria and erysipelas, 

 and the ordinary kinds of septicaemia belong here. We cannot con- 

 firm, so far, that there is any difference between the micrococci of 

 these last-named diseases, nor is it probable that a difference exists. 



Koch has discovered that tubercle -tissue is always infested by 

 bacilli, and this is correct; but this tubercle-tissue is not created on 



