This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1885 edition. Excerpt: ...and others (Brit. Med. Journ. Oct. 14,1882) have devised simpler and speedier methods than Koch's for staining and so detecting the bacilli. These methods are readily applicable to the clinical examination of phthisical sputa. Koch has shown that the bacilli may be cultivated in the serum of ox-blood. The bacilli so bred may then be introduced into the bodies of various animals, such as rabbits, rats, and dogs, and tuberculosis is thereupon induced; in other words, they are attacked by a disease characterised by a progressive formation of cellular nodules. The nodules always contain the characteristic bacilli. In guinea-pigs the first appearance of disease is manifested ten days after inoculation. It may therefore be accepted as an established fact that tuberculosis is an infective disease, induced by the presence of a specific bacillus. In the light of this knowledge, the various theories which have been advanced with regard to the causation of tuberculosis become in some respects irrelevant. It will be matter for further experimental investigation to determine the vital properties of the tubercle-bacillus. Among other points, it will have to be settled whether the bacillus can develope only within the bodies of men and other mammals, or whether it may not pass through some stage of its existence outside the body: in other words, whether the disease is strictly contagious, i.e. transmissible directly from one subject to another; or whether it is due to something of the nature of a miasma--a poison which may develope outside the body. According to Koch, the bacillus can only be bred between the temperatures of 30C and 41C (86F--105-80F). If this be so, it is hard to see how it can multiply outside the body. With regard to the transmission...