SYNOPSIS OF CONTINENTAL VETERINARY JOURNALS. 409 
from induction a figure of a small organism composed of 
chaplets of spherical grains, a variety of which causes fer¬ 
mentation of the mulberry leaves in the intestinal canals of 
silk-worms, such as occurs in the disease termed Jlacherie. 
Another variety he in 1862 announced as the cause of 
ammoniacal fermentation of urine. German authors have 
determined its presence in a number of pathological cases, 
especially diphtheria and puerperal fever. M. Pasteur has 
found it in the horse and in man in the pus of closed abscesses, 
especially in the case of a young 'woman who presented 
multiple abscesses in the thighs and arms. On examining 
her blood, post-mortem, he found the organism present, and 
was hence led to surmise that it is the cause of puerperal 
fever. M. Pasteur hastened to verify this before the time of 
the next meeting. He obtained blood from a patient suffer¬ 
ing from puerperal fever, and could only doubtfully note the 
presence of the organism in question; but he placed it in 
cultivating solution and obtained the same organism without 
intermingling of other forms, as grains arranged in pairs or 
in chaplets. During life, and seven, and thirty-two hours after 
death, fresh cultivations were made, and in each case with 
the same results. The last were made with a small drop of 
blood from the foot and with blood from the femoral vein. 
The result was uniformly the development of the same 
organism. After death, the uterine pus and lymphatics, &c., 
showed this organism associated with others under the form of 
very fine points, and of rods very small and frequently mobile. 
By cultivating pus from the peritoneal cavity in another case, 
a mixture of the “ chaplet 33 form with an organism previously 
recognised as an active generator ot pus was obtained. “ I 
cannot too much insist here on the circumstances that the 
two organisms of which I have just spoken are very common, 
are found everywhere, and may be obtained from common 
water. I will, later on, explain the strangeness of this 
statement when joined to the affirmation that the etiology 
of puerperal fever should be especially sought in relation to 
microscopic organisms as found in pus. Pure pus is com¬ 
paratively harmless when injected into the blood vessels, 
giving rise only to local abscesses of a metastatic character ; 
but often pus contains microscopic organisms which find in 
the blood or in some other fluid of the body a medium 
adapted to their development. Serious results ensue, ac¬ 
cording to the nature of the microbic present. Nothing, for 
example, is more different than the affections produced in 
the body by the chaplet grains, from that resulting from the 
little organisms such as we have just noticed, as readily pro- 
