262 TRANSLATION. 
us daily that the numbers of those is almost insignificant when 
compared with that of the dust on the surface of the objects and 
in the common waters, even in the most clear. And, besides, 
nothing would prevent the use of the antiseptic manipulations, 
which, united to those that I indicate, could be considerably 
simplified. A phenic solution, even very weak and consequently 
without inconvenience by its action upon the hands of the operator 
or for his respiration, cou'.d be advantageously substituted for 
strong carbolic solution. 
This subject is too important for the Academy not to give me 
a few moments more of attention to allow me to particularize 
more and to go into more precise details, if possible, upon the 
dangers of death after amputation, or even after some simple 
operation, as we know of several deaths having taken place after 
venesection. 
I will speak of a vibrio which lias not yet been noticed, and 
whose properties throw new light upon the subject which occupies 
us and upon that great rock of surgery—the purulent infections. 
When one take as seed for cultivation in the vacuum some 
drops of common water, it may happen that it contains only one 
kind of organism, as common water often contains unique germs 
when taken in very small volume and as seed for a given culture. 
This is another previous mode of separation of germs, by-the-way; 
but, to cut short, I will not stop at the proof of these assertions. 
If one multiply cultures thus made with different common 
waters, he often meets the vibrio I am speaking of, and which 
presents the following characters*: It is a being at the same 
time serobic and anaerobic; in other words, cultivated to the 
contact of the air, it absorbs oxygen and returns an equal volume 
of carbonic acid gas without formation of hydrogen gas. In this 
condition it is no ferment. Cultivated, on the contrary, in the 
vacuum or on pressure of carbonic acid gas, pure, it multiplies 
also, not without giving this time a true fermentation with 
formation of carbonic acid and hydrogen, as long as life is 
carried on without air. It is a new confirmation of our prin- 
* At present, with the water which feeds my laboratory, fifty times in one 
hundred, almost, this result is obtained. 
