THE GERM THEORY AND COMMON DISEASES. 
179 
a little all over, giving rise to metastatic abscesses, which became 
causes of death. 
Fifth Observation. —On the 17th of June I received some 
blood, obtained with great care, from a child who had died soon 
after birth, and whose mother had had, before confinement, chills 
and other febrile symptoms. This blood, when cultivated, fur¬ 
nished the pyogenic vibrio in abundance. On the contrary, blood 
taken from the mother on the 18th, in the morning, (she had died 
at 1 a. m. during the night of that day), gave rise to no organic 
development, either on the 19th or the following days. The au¬ 
topsy of the mother took place on the 19 th. The fact is worthy 
of notice, that neither the uterus, the peritoneum, nor the intes- 
tines presented any peculiar appearance; but the liver was filled 
with metastatic abscesses. Where the hepatic vein emerges, there 
was pus in the vein, and the walls of the liver at that point were 
ulcerated. The pus of the abscesses of the organ was full of 
pyogenic vibrios. The substance of the liver itself, taken outside 
of the visible abscesses, gave cultures full of the same organism. 
Interpretation of the Disease and of the Death. —The pyoge¬ 
nic vibrio formed in the uterus, or rather, which was already 
present in the body of the mother before confinement, as she had 
chills, had produced in the liver metastatic abscesses, and being 
communicated to the blood of the child, it had produced in him 
one of the forms of purulent infection, which carried him off. 
Sixth Observation. —June 18th, 1879, I was informed that a 
woman confined several days previously, at Cochin, was very sick. 
On the 20th blood from the finger was sown and remained sterile. 
July 15 th, or twenty-five days later, blood from the finger was 
sown, but with no development. In the lochia no well-recog¬ 
nized organism was discovered. The woman was, however, said 
to be very sick. She died on the 18th of July, at 9 a. m., after 
a long and painful sickness, as it extended back a month and she 
was unable to stir without great pain. The autopsy on the 19th, 
at 10 a. m., was very interesting. She had suffered from purulent 
pleurisy, with a considerable pouch of pus and false purulent 
membranes on the pleura; the liver was whitish, greasy in as¬ 
pect, but firm and without apparent metastatic abscesses; the 
