Inoculation of bacillar phthisis. 
160 
the genital organs. It is for this reason, also, that it is sufficient 
to know which are the tissues or the liquids which are bacillifer- 
ous, in order to utilize them ; and it is demonstrated that the 
bacillus occupies in the tubercles, whether its origin be local or 
general, the parts in a state of softening, and in the nodules 
themselves, the central part of the neoplasm, the giant cells. 
Among the liquids, one must never depend on the blood, the 
urine or excreted substances; the pathological secretions of the 
mucous, the snuco-pus of the products of expectoration are those 
which possess the maximum of virnlency. 
Fresh Bacilliferous Substances. —With the exception of the 
sputa, which keep their virnlency for months, the matters used 
must be fresh ; and consequently the tuberculous remains of man 
cannot be used, on account of late post-mortem changes. Natural 
or artificial tuberculous animals ought not, and cannot, furnish 
substances of inoculation, except when fresh killed. Putrid mat¬ 
ters give rise either to putrid septicemia or are powerless. These 
precautions that Villemin recommended, without being able to 
explain, have for good reason the biological history of micro¬ 
phytes. We have learned two important facts; by contact with 
matter in putrefaction the bacillar microbes often lose their viru¬ 
lent power. This explains the failure of inoculations by mixed 
matter. And again, the injection of putrid matters killed ani¬ 
mals by septicemia and failed to develop tuberculosis. 
II.—Animals susceptible of Tuberculosis or refractory. —The 
choice of animals to render tuberculous is also a point of great 
importance. We know, to-day, which animals ordinarily take 
phthisis and die from it, and also which are refractory. The 
guinea-pig is easily infected and still more easily inoculated ; the 
rabbit is the predestined victim of the bacilloses, whether devel¬ 
oped spontaneously by contagion or communicated by the physi¬ 
ologist. It was even accused of becoming phthisicy too easily 
(par complaisance), but it is not so; Libert did not discover in it 
the so-called spontaneous tuberculosis; and Raymond, out of 300 
autopsies, had often found verminous cysts, but found only five 
cases of tuberculosis. Dogs are seldom tuberculous ; inoculations 
by Bollinger and Klebs have not proven less successful. The 
