A CASE OF THE ISOLATION OP DIPHTHERIA BACILLI PROM A POST 
MORTEM. 
By L. S. Ross. 
(Abstract) 
Records seem to show that diphtheria bacilli are not often found in the blood 
of the patient, but that they may be occasionally after death. Probably at the 
time of death the bacilli may enter into the circulation, but not as a usual 
occurrence. On the 20th of January, 1908, the writer was asked to assist at a 
post mortem of a child, the cause of death presumably being cerebrospinal 
meningitis. The post mortem appearances seemed to indicate that as the cause 
of death. Bacterial cultures were taken from the spinal canal, from the bx'ain 
and from the serous fluid about the heart The cultures from the spinal cord 
were all sterile, one from the brain showed some cocci^ and the culture from the 
serous fluid of the heart showed a mixed culture of cocci and diphtheria. Sub- 
cultures produced a pure growth of diphtheria. 
( 97 ) 
