It seems that many of the enthusiasts of the microbic origin of disease, accepting the demonstrations of Koch on the origin of tuberculosis, would explain all the symptoms of pulmonary phthisis by the action of the same fungus. In tubercular disease in other parts of the body, such, for instance, as the large joints, the manifestations are quite different from tubercular disease of the lungs. There is no hectic, however great the emaciation, until the joint or large periarticular tubercular abscesses are opened and infected with pyogenic bacteria. This ought to draw attention to the fact that phthisis is not a simple disease.
In the examination of sputa from tubercular patients, every one has noticed the abundance of micrococci and non-tubercular bacilli. These observations have lately been attested by culture experiments. The tubercular nodules are for a long time free from pyogenic infection, and the inoculation of gelatine in these