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PATHOGENIC BACTERIA OF THE HUMAN MOUTH. 261 :

lander. The specimens are placed for two minutes in a con-
centrated solution of gentian-violet in aniline water, then treated
with alcohol (fi"om one-quarter to one-half minute), and rinsed
with water. They may be examined in water, or after being
mounted in Canada balsam.
Injections of pure cultures into the subcutaneous connective
tissue, or into the abdominal or thoracic cavities, or directly into
the lungs, provoke the same symptoms as injections with saliva.
Death ensues within twenty-four to thirty-six hours, under phe-
nomena resembling septicfemia. The autopsy rev^eals large
cj[uantities of capsule-cocci in the blood and in the different
organs, large tumor of the spleen, often also peritonitis with
or without slight exudation. But little reaction occurs at the
point of infection. Mice and rabbits were highly susceptible
pigeons, chickens, dogs, refractory ; guinea-pigs variously dis-
posed.
The blood of the deceased animals is highly infectious. Ani-
mals whic/i had suri'ired one secure infection did not react a second
time.
An exposure of forty-eight hours in a liquid culture medium
to a temperature of 42° C. was sufficient to destroy the patho-
genic properties of the coccus of sputum septicaemia. Cultivated
in milk, it is said to lose its virulence in a short time.
If the micrococcus of sputum septicaemia has been repeatedly
found in the oral cavity of healthy persons, its occurrence in the
mouths of those suffering from pneumonia is almost constant.
In genuine croupous pneumonia Friinkel found it twelve times
out of fourteen, and Weichselbaum eighty-one times out of
eighty-eight.
When we take into consideration the fact that this coccus is
not easily cultivable, we may readily suppose that its absence in
the two and seven cases respectively may have been due to faults
in the method of cultivation.
If, now, the view held by Friinkel. Weichselbaum, etc., to
which also Bauragarten^^ adheres, that tlie coccus of sputum
septicemia is to be regarded as the most frequent, if not as the
sole, excitant of lobar pneumonia, be correct, then we may with
sufficient reason assume that the infection, at least in many cases,