Investigations into the etiology of traumatic infective diseases / by Robert Koch ; translated by W. Watson Cheyne.

  • Koch, Robert, 1843-1910. Untersuchungen über die Aetiologie der Wundinfectionskrankheiten. English
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Investigations into the etiology of traumatic infective diseases / by Robert Koch ; translated by W. Watson Cheyne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    root of the ear. Their limit is sharply defined, as can he seen very well on a longitudinal section of the ear examined with a low magnifying power (twenty-five diameters). (Platei., fig. 5.) The upper part (c), from the tip to h, is gangrenous. The larger dark oval or round spots {d) are transverse sections of vessels containing masses of micrococci in their interior. The widely-distributed micrococcus chains cannot of course be recognised with this power. It is only in the lower fourth of the gangrenous region that they occur in denser groups, which can be seen as little dark points. Then all of a sudden at h appears a densely agglomerated mass of nuclei, forming as it were a wall against the invasion of the micrococci, and this is the limit up to which these organisms may be found. They do not extend, even in the blood-vessels, beyond this line. This wall of nuclei has no great breadth, and immediately beyond it comes the normal tissue. By the use of high magnifying ]iow^ers it becomes apparent that the micrococci do not reach quite up to the nuclear layer. On the side directed towards the micrococci the nuclei are undergoing destruction. Numerous fragments of irregular shape, constantly becoming smaller, form the upper limit of the wall of nuclei, and when this region is reached, in examining the preparation, we may be sure that we are in the neighbourhood of these organisms. There almost always remains between the last remnants of the nuclei and the micrococci a line of considerable breadth consisting only of gangrenous tissue, in which neither micrococci nor nuclei can be found. It is seldom that the micrococci extend into the disintegrating nuclear layer. These appearances lead us to the conclusion that the action of these micrococci in causing the gangrene is somewhat as follows :—Introduced by inoculation into living animal tissues, they multiply, and as a part of their vegetative process they excrete soluble substances which get into the surrounding tissues by diffusion. When greatly concentrated, as in the neighbourhood of the micrococci, this product of the organisms has such a deleterious action on the cells that these perish and finally completely disappear. At a greater distance from the micrococci the poison becomes more diluted and acts less intensely, only producing inflammation