BACILLUS AEROGENES CAPSULATUS.       469
embryos, and there multiply sufficiently to bring about
death later on.
After the death of the animal, when the blood is no
longer oxygenated, the bacilli grow rapidly with a
marked gas-production, which in some cases is said to
have caused the bodies to swell to twice their normal
size. The result of injection into guinea-pigs does not
differ very much from that observed in rabbits. Gaseous
phlegmons are sometimes produced.
Pigeons when inoculated subcutaneously in the pec-
toral region frequently succumb. Following the injec-
tion there is gas-production that causes the tissues of the
chest to become emphyseinatous. The bird generally
dies in from seven to twenty-four hours, but may live.
Intraperitoneal inoculation of animals sometimes
causes fatal purulent peritonitis.
The infection as seen in man generally occurs from
wounds into which dirt has been ground, as in the case
of a compound, comminuted fracture of the humerus,
with fatal infection, reported by Dunham, or in wrounds
and injuries in the neighborhood of the perineum.
Among the twenty-three cases reported by Welch and
Flexner1 we find wounds of the knee, leg, hip, and fore-
arm, ulcer of the stomach, typhoid ulcerations of the in-
testine, strangulated hernia with operation, gastric and
duodenal ulcer, perineal section, and aneurism, as con-
ditions in which external or gastro-intestinal infection
occurred.
Dobbin, P. Ernst, Graham Stewart and Baldwin, and
Kroiiig have met cases of puerperal sepsis and sepsis fol-
lowing abortion caused by the bacillus, or in'which it
played an important role.
The symptoms following infection are quite uniform.
There are usually redness and swelling of the wound,
with rapid elevation of temperature and rapid pulse. The
wound is usually more or less emphysematous, and dis-
charges a thin, dirty, brownish, offensive fluid which con-
^ Jour, of Exper. Med.t vol. I, No. I, Jan., 1896.