FERMENTATION AS A CAUSE OF VARIOUS DISEASES. 597 
metamorphoses which take place in certain maladies; an 
albuminoid matter, which, in a certain deteriorated state, acts 
as a ferment, and particular substances proceeding from its 
action.* 
But analogy is insufficient. It has been shown by care¬ 
fully made experiments that the composition of the blood 
during disease undergoes alterations and variations, and that 
artificial disease, closely resembling natural ones, can be pro¬ 
duced by introducing into the blood-vessels substances acting 
as ferments. Multiple abscesses, induced by injecting pus 
into the veins of dogs; septic affections, caused by the injec¬ 
tion of purulent putrid matters into the veins of animals; 
diseases with all the characteristics of typhoid fever, provoked 
by the injection of putrefied blood into the circulating cur¬ 
rent; finally, contagious diseases, such as the glanders, which 
is produced by injecting glandered humours, prove that a 
general affection can be simply produced by introducing into 
the blood a substance to play the part of a ferment. There 
are diseases produced by morbific ferments, which may be 
called catalytic maladies, in which the morbific matter, in¬ 
ducing metamorphoses by contact with the alterable princi¬ 
ples of the blood, is the primary cause of all the symptoms 
presented by the animal economy. It is impossible to deny 
that fermentation takes place in the blood. 
Admitting that the starting-point of many diseases is the 
action of a specific ferment in the blood, is it possible to 
prevent its effects, to render it inactive in the living organism, 
as can be done by chemical means outside the body ? This 
is the cardinal point which gives interest to this pathological 
question. 
M. Polli believes that he has proved, by a series of facts 
and conclusive experiments, that it is possible to neutralise 
morbific ferments in the blood of animals by chemical sub¬ 
stances which do not act in a manner incompatible with life; 
and that with these substances it is we must hope success¬ 
fully to treat diseases of which fermentation is the primary 
cause. 
It is well known that sulphurous acid gas prevents alco¬ 
holic and acetic fermentation, as well as the fermentation of 
animal matters and of organic matters in general. Thus it 
arrests, if it be already begun, the fermentation produced by 
* M. Pasteur says that the ferment is not an albuminous matter altered 
by oxygen, but an organized creature, of which the germ is brought by the 
air ; and that the presence of albuminous matter is a condition indispensable 
to all fermentation, because these substances are necessary for the develop¬ 
ment of the ferment. 
