550 
A. O. ZWICK. 
much weakened by more recent observations and experiments. 
Sometimes, and, unhappily rather often, the bacillus will pass 
safely through the intestine after traversing the stomach, and the 
secretory, or rather the digestive, better even the absorptive 
functions of the intestine are favorable to the bacillus. And thus 
it is that once arrived in the intestine, the bacillus has but to 
follow the ordinary route traversed by the nutritive body juices, 
the chyle, the lymph, the blood, to enter your heart’s blood, with 
this the lung, where the blood-current growing slower, there are 
conditions presented that are quite favorable for the bacillus to 
become localized, and to develop.” 
As regards the supposed protection of the individual against 
tubercular invasion by the gastric juices, I believe that the latter 
offer far less protection against the tubercle bacillus than against 
the germ of typhoid fever, and yet all will readily agree that the 
latter must quite evidently succeed in safely traversing the stom¬ 
ach and reaching the intestine, where it localizes and produces its 
characteristic lesions. 
My ground for this belief is the special manner in which the 
tubercular invasion by the gastric juieces, I believe that the latter 
in microscopy to make this germ visible. Indeed it was by the 
discovery of these and correlated facts that Koch was enabled to 
again in turn discover this microbe, just as his work with these 
same dyestuffs led Ehrlich at the end, as the final outcome of his 
many brilliant successes, to the discovery of “ 606,” that most 
successful example of the new, truly scientific, art of healing, 
chemotherapy. 
That the various bacilli can be made visible by staining with 
the anilin dyes is, of course, well known to all; and that the ba¬ 
cillus tuberculosis behaves in a special way towards the dyes is, 
of course, also a familiar fact, viz., not only that we must use 
mordants in order to stain it, but it is' absolutely a distinguishing 
mark or characteristic of this germ, that once stained it retains 
such stain even in the presence of acids. It is acid-fast. 
But do we keep this fact sufficiently in mind as an explanation 
of its murderous power? In other words, if this germ will resist 
