Septicaemia is caused by the absorption of the products of putrefaction, induced before bacteria can multiply inside or outside the body.  Bacteria must find a congenial soil.  The so-called cholera bacillus must gain access to the intestinal tract before it finds conditions suitable to colonization.  It does not seem to multiply in the stomach or in the blood, but once injected into the duodenum develops with astonishing rapidity, and the delicate epithelial cells of the villi become swollen, soften and break down, exposing the mucosa.

It has been shown that bouillon in which Loeffler’s diphtheria bacillus has grown, and which has been passed through unglazed porcelain filters, shows the presence of a poison which is capable of producing the same results upon inoculation as the pure culture of the bacillus itself.  Zarniko, working upon the same organism, obtained a number of positive results that led him to declare this bacillus is the cause of epidemic diphtheria, in spite of many assertions to the contrary.  Chantmesse and Widal record the results of their work as to what will most easily and effectively destroy the bacillus of diphtheria.

The only three substances that actually checked and destroyed its vitality were phenic acid (5 per cent.), camphor (20 per cent.), olive oil (25 per cent.), in combination.  For the last I substitute glycerine, because this allows the mixture to penetrate farther into the mucous membrane than oil, the latter favoring a tendency to pass over the surface.  This mixture when heated separates into two layers, the upper one viscid and forming a sort of “glycerol,” the lower clear.  The latter will completely sterilize a thread dipped in a pure culture of the diphtheria bacillus.  Corrosive sublimate was not examined because in strong enough doses it would be dangerous and in weaker ones it would be useless.

The facts obtained in regards to the streptococcus of erysipelas are reported as follows:  That both chemical and experimental evidence teach the extreme ease of a renewed attack of the disease; that it is possible to kill guinea pigs by an intoxication when they are immune to an inoculation of the culture in ordinary quantities.  And this latter fact should warn experimenters trying to obtain immunity in man by the inoculation of non-pathogenic bacteria, because the same results may be reached.

A new theory in regard to fevers and the relation of micro-organisms is suggested by Roussy, viz.:  That it is a fermentation produced by a diastase or soluble ferment found in all micro-organisms and cells, and which they use in attacking and transforming matter, either inside their substance or without it.