CONTRIBUTION TO THE GERM THEORY. 
129 
third of the cases. In these, different but equally character¬ 
istic symptoms supervened, death took place in about fifty 
hours, and a post-mortem examination showed the blood to 
be crowded with small bacilli about 1 /u in length, which 
occurred in the vessels of all organs of the body, surround¬ 
ing the red corpuscles and absolutely filling the white. 
Even -V drop of the blood thus affected was able to com¬ 
municate the disease to another mouse, and the disease was, 
in fact, carried through seventeen generations. There seems 
little doubt that the bacilli are the actual contagium of this 
form of traumatic septicaemia. It is a curious circumstance 
that field-mice and rabbits were not susceptible to the 
disease. 
2. Progressive Tissue-necrosis ( Gangrene) in Mice .—In mice 
injected with decomposing blood there were sometimes 
found at the place of injection (in the subcutaneous tissue) 
micrococci, as well as the regular bacilli of septicaemia. 
These micrococci had a diameter of 0 5 ji, multiplied rapidly, 
and showed a great tendency to the formation of t( chains .” 
Lymph from the subcutaneous tissue infested with these was 
injected into a mouse's ear. The micrococcus-chains soon 
multiplied so fast as to interpenetrate the whole ear, the 
tissue of which became so changed as to be hardly recognis¬ 
able; cartilage cells looked pale, as if treated with potash, 
and blood and connective-tissue corpuscles were no longer 
to be seen. It seems clear that the septicaemia-bacillus is a 
necessary forerunner of the gangrene-micrococcus. An inter¬ 
esting pure-culture experiment was tried. Field-mice, 
which, as stated above, are not susceptible to septicaemia, 
were injected with fluid containing both bacilli and micro¬ 
cocci. The former had no effect, the latter multiplied and 
caused death, and from the animals so affected both field 
and house mice could now be inoculated, the result being 
always gangrene and never septicaemia. 
3. Progressive Abscess-formation in Rabbits .—Rabbits were 
injected with putrid blood. A flat, hard, lenticular infiltra¬ 
tion was gradually formed at the place of injection, produc¬ 
ing at last a fatal abscess in the subcutaneous tissue. The 
abscess was covered by a thin layer of micrococcus-zoogloea; 
its cheesy contents were finely granular, and contained no 
bacteria, but w r ere probably derived from the zooglcea and 
from the enclosed dead tissues. The individual micrococci 
were O’ 15 jjl in diameter. The blood of rabbits dying from 
this disease produced no infection, but the disease was com¬ 
municated by injecting a little of the interior of the abscess 
rubbed up in water. 
