EDITORIAL. 
3S7 
In some subjects, the bacillar infection revealed by tubercu- 
line, is not accompanied with any morbid manifestation nor any 
apparent organic lesion. In the greatest number lesions occur, 
follicular or limited, which remain for a more or less long time 
or perhaps always, latent. And again in others, tuberculization 
is realized and then appears the disease studied by clinicians and 
anatomo-pathologists under the name of tuberculosis. 
The extreme frequency of bacillar contaminations proceeds 
on one side, from the necessity for man to live in compact social 
groups, increasing the easy diffusions of tuberculous bacilli 
thrown out by the diseased organism; and again because of the 
conditions of social life (lodgings, family livings, alimentation, 
etc.) increasing in number and severity the occasions for infec¬ 
tion. 
3. All open doors of an organism susceptible of bacillar in¬ 
fection may be a door of entrance for the tuberculous bacilli. 
Normal doors of entrance may thus be: the mucous membrane 
of the natural cavities, particularly the digestive, in those parts 
where they are more liable to absorb particles in suspension and 
also the pulmonary epithelium. 
The introduction of bacilli can take place also through acci¬ 
dental doors, such as the mucous may offer them, the naso¬ 
pharynx, the skin or any other tissues. 
4. The bacillar infection, in man and in animals spontane¬ 
ously or experimentally tuberculisable, occurs normally or primi¬ 
tively by the lymphatic circulation. 
5. Experimentation, clinical observations and anatomo- 
pathology demonstrate the preponderance of the digestive tract 
as a normal door of entrance of the tuberculous bacillus in the 
organism. 
This entrance of the tuberculous bacilli takes place most com¬ 
monly without leaving on the surface or in the' depth of the 
mucous, the slightest lesion. Cohnheim’s law must then be left 
aside, as it does not answer the reality of the facts. 
6. Pulmonary tuberculosis is most ordinarily but the late 
