THE ACTION OF BLOOD ON GERMS PRESUMABLY KILLED BY ANTISEPTICS

A recent report by Morton, North and Engley¹ has opened an interesting controversy about the antibacterial action of some mercurial compounds. Attention has been called by these authors to the fact, already known,² that bacteria believed to be killed, because of their failure to grow in common culture mediums, may be "resuscitated" by being transferred to Linden's thioglycollate broth; they have found, moreover, that hemolytic streptococci susceptible to revival by thioglycollate are also able to infect and cause the death of mice when injected intraperitoneally into them. As the result of these findings the scope of usefulness of these mercurial compounds as disinfectants would seem to be limited. Brewer³ and Powell⁴ later strove to prove that the mercurials mercurochrome® and merthiolate® possess, under certain conditions, a definite antibacterial action; but the validity of their conclusions is still open to doubt.

It is already known that germs