INOCULATION OF BACILLAR PHTHISIS. 
171 
Effects of Inert Substances. —Indeed, instead of tuberculous 
or caseous matter, by comparison, inert substances, charpie, 
tissue-paper or fragments of cancer were introduced in the peri¬ 
toneum. The pus of an abscess, tine powder were injected in the 
veins, and in all these cases, besides local granulations, generalized 
tuberculoid alterations were obtained. The subcutaneous inser¬ 
tion produced the same effects. In introducing an irritating liquid, 
like croton oil, or an irritating powder, in the cellular tissue, ana¬ 
tomic processes have been observed, resembling those of tubercu¬ 
losis ; this liquid can even be seen in the giant cells which appear 
in those inflammatory nodules; and again, by using colored 
liquids, this can be found in the giant cells. 
It seems, then, that tubercle does not act as a virus, but as an 
ordinary irritant, and that the neoplasm resulting from it resem¬ 
bles all tuberculoids obtained from irritating foreign substances. 
This is evident in an anatomical point of view, by considering the 
pathological properties of these products—it is no more than 
this. 
Specific Effects of Tuberculous Substances. —The interesting 
experiments of Mr. Toussaint. and especially those of Mr. H. Mar¬ 
tin, have solved the difficulty in a positive manner: Tuberculous 
matter,” says the physiologist, “ produces after incubation the 
formation of a local tubercle, to which succeeds a generalized tu¬ 
berculosis.” If one inoculates, on the contrary, the matter ex¬ 
tracted from the nodules following the injection of foreign sub¬ 
stances, it never gives rise to a general tuberculosis ; it even loses, 
after the second term of the series, the property of producing a 
local inflammation. It is, then, the series of the inoculabilities 
that characterizes the true tubercle ; the specificity of the tubercle 
is thus demonstrated, notwithstanding its anatomic similitude to 
common irritation; that tuberculous nodules offer the characters 
of an inflammatory lesion, it imports little; they have their 
pathognomonic properties in the point of view of their origin and 
of their serial reproduction. 
{To be continued .) 
