]08 
NOTES AND MEMOR.iNDA. 
fifty hours, the Bacteria (a bacillus form, one micro- 
millimeter in length) having multiplied in the blood and 
crowded the vessels of all organs of the body. One-tenth 
of a drop of the blood of an animal thus affected sufficed to 
convey the infection, and it was handed on thus for seven- 
teen generations. 
A distinct disease — gangrene — was induced in some of the 
mice experimented on, and this was found to be accompanied 
by the appearance of micrococci (minute spherical Bacteria 
occurring in chains and masses). These are, in all proba- 
bility, a form-phase of the septicaemic Bacilli, which are 
their necessary predecessors, but the Micrococci differ not 
only in form but in pathological activity from the Bacilli 
which generated them. 
In rabbits by injection of putrid blood a subcutaneous 
abscess could be produced without infection of the blood. 
The disease could be propagated by injections of the fluid of 
the abscess which contained micrococci. From putrid fluid 
obtained by macerating a mouse-skin in W’ater, pyaemia was 
produced in rabbits which could be propagated by injection of 
y^th of a drop of the blood. Micrococci (not forming chains nor 
zooglaea masses) characterised this particular kind of pyaemia. 
Another septicaemic condition was obtained in rabbits by 
subcutaneous injection of putrid tneat, and found to be 
characterised by large micrococci (one micromillimeter in 
diameter) . This was communicable ; but another local 
erysipelatous condition of the tissues, obtained by injecting 
mouse-dung infusion beneath the ear of the rabbit, was not 
inoculable, although the tissues of the ear contained large 
numbers of Bacilli, three micromillimeters in length. 
These investigations are of the highest importance, as 
showing firstly that a variety of inflammatory diseases may 
take their origin by the access of certain Bacteria to wounds ; 
secondly, as showing that the particular form of Bacterium 
in each case can be distinguished. The derivation of the 
micrococcus of necrosis of the mouse from the Bacillus of 
septicaemia of the same animal is also a result which has 
great significance. 
Dr. Koch is not able to admit in the case of septicaemia 
that the virulence of the poison increases with each succes- 
sive inoculation. This he admits only up to the third inocu- 
lation as a rule, and attributes it in accordance with the most 
probable analogy to the history of various beer-ferments 
studied and separated by Pasteur, to this fact, namely, that 
just as with beer-yeasts so with septicaemic ferments, culti- 
vation by iterative minimal inoculation in their specially 
