Because labors in bacteriology promised to be fruitful in practical
results, the workers speedily became innumerable, and we are
accumulating a wondrous store of facts. How long now is the list of
diseases in which germs make their appearance--in pneumonia, in
endocarditis, in erysipelas, in pyaemia, in tuberculosis, and so on and
so on. One of the most striking illustrations is the gonococcus of
gonorrhoea, whose presence in and around gives to the pus cells
their virulent properties, and when transferred to the eye works such
lamentable mischief. Without their existence the inoculation of pus in
the healthy eye is harmless; pus bearing the gonococci excites the
most intense inflammation. Similar suppurative action in the cornea is
often caused by infection of cocci. The proof of causation may be
found in the fact that the most effective cure now practiced for such
suppuration is to sterilize them by the actual cautery. Rosenbach says
that he knows six distinct microbes which are capable of exciting
suppuration in man. Their activity may be productive of a poison, or
putrefactive alkaloid, which is absorbed.
There are at present two prominent theories in regard to the
infections which produce disease.
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