584 
MICROPHYTES IN THE BLOOD AND THEIR RELATION TO 
DISEASE* 
Mr. T. R. Lewis contributes a paper of fifty pages on 
this important subject, giving a critical resume of the work 
of former observers, as well as the results of his own investi¬ 
gations. 
Mr. Lewis, first of all, goes over the evidence for the 
opinion that bacteria are the actual cause of the morbid 
symptoms in splenic fever, septicaemia, infectious pneumo¬ 
enteritis of the pig, and recurrent fever, the diseases in which 
there is the strongest evidence for a contcigium vivum. He 
then recounts some observations of his own as to the occur¬ 
rence of bacteria in the blood of perfectly healthy animals, 
and gives his reasons for thinking that the presence of 
microphytes in the blood is a mere epi-phenomenon, having 
no causal relation with the disease. The chief reasons ad¬ 
duced may be summed up as follows :— 
1. It is by no means proved that the various forms of 
Bacillus spirillum , &c., occurring in certain diseases are 
specifically distinct from forms having no relation whatever 
to any pathological conditions. 
2. All the representatives of the Schizomycetes may be 
and have been introduced into the blood without causing any 
morbid symptoms.f 
3. In the diseases supposed to be due to bacteria, the 
microphytes are “ never to be detected in the earlier stages 
of the disease, but only at a brief period before and after a 
fatal termination/’ 
4. “ The poisonous properties of septinous blood and of 
other decomposing animal solutions gradually disappear 
toward the third or fourth day, a fact which is scarcely 
reconcilable with the doctrine that the poison resides in the 
almost imperishable f spores’ of the bacilli, which existed 
during the earlier stages of decomposition/’ 
5. Septinous fluids retain their virulent properties after 
filtration through fine porous materials, the effect of the 
filtration being to free them from the ie visible molecules of 
every description/' 
* ‘Quart. Journ. Micr. Sci./ xix (1879), p. 356. 
t With.regard to these two points, cf. Koch, ‘ Wundinfectionskrank- 
heiten/ ante, p. 754. 
