Report on Local Legislation as to Infectious Diseases
Authors: E. Hart
Journal: BMJ (1881)

the two eggs, had been grown for six weeks in urine in the doubly covered glass bottle.An acute abscess, with its usual accompaniments, resulted in all these instances, Thus the cocci, diluted so that (assuming an egg to contain thirteen fluid,-drachms) only 1-146,oi6,oooth of a drop of the original pus could have been injected, produced an abscess -a result inexplicable save on the assumption that they were the sole cause.The former observations on the growth, development, and movements of the micrococci in pus were repeated, and controlled by those contained in the egg-albumen.Experiments on eggs by the introduction of pus containing other forms of organisms, such as bacteria and bacilli, showed that these latter also grew under such circumstances,.but-produced extreme putre- faction in the eggs, and blackened their red portion.The behaviour of micrococci in wounds and ulcers was now explained.They grow badly where exposed to the action of the air, and in this imperfect condition do not-reproduce themselves with the rapidity necessary for the exhibition of their noxious influences.They probably also lose for a time, when grown under such circumstances, a considerable portion of their activity and virulence.When placed in more favourable conditions, as when, removed from the exposed urine to the sheltered egg, they speedily reacquire their ancient powers of inducing disease.This seems also to explain their being so prone to cause blood-poisoning in deep and sinuous wounds, as in those produced by a compound dislocation or removal of the thyroid gland.To sum up: Micrococci do not produce putrefaction.They develop best when removed from the atmosphere.The preceding facts prove that they are able, under suitable conditions, to give rise to blood- poisoning, to acute inflammation, and to suppuration.V.-CONCLUSION.Little remains to be added under this head.The more these things are reflected on, the more pregnant they become with explanations and suggestions regarding many of the obscure facts in connection with the processes of inflammation and blood-poisoning.They tend to confirm the supposition of Kocher, that acute inflammations are due to microorganisms; they suggest many probable hypotheses to explain the diffi- culties occurring in the study of pyoemia, septicemia, gonorrhceal rheumatism, etc.; the different virulence of gonorrheal balanitis and gonorrhceal urethritis ; the occurrence of mammary abscess and pelvic suppurations after childbed; the causes and varieties of dissection and poisoned wounds; the success attending the open-air treatment of wounds; the causes of surgical fever ; and many other features'of dis- ease that it would be premature to discuss here.It is not intended to be conveyed by anything that has been said, that micrococcus is the only organism which produces such results: the other organisms fall to be investigated in their turn, and much yet remains to be done, for the subject is only in its infancy.I cannot close this paper without expressing my thanks to Professor Ewart and Dr. Walker of Aberdeen, for their counsel and assistance, and my sincere sense of the obligations I am under to the Committee of Scientific Grants, and through them to the British Medical Association, for the aid they have generously given me, without which aid I had previously found it impossible to grapple with the subject of micro- organisms in surgical diseases, save in a most imperfect way.TRUE AND FALSE DYsPEPSIA.-Ina communication made to the Paris Academy of Medicine on January i ith, M. G. See set forth his views on the diagnosis of true and false dyspepsia.After having noted that a dyspepsia is a true one when the digestion undergoes a perma- nent chemical disturbance, he asserted that a number of invalids show the same apparent phenomena as dyspeptics, without experiencing the unpleasant effects or the serious results of chronic dyspepsia.The * For greater convenience, I have given to each of the clauses to which I shall have to refer a distinctive letter, so that it can be more easily traced.