Minor Intelligence [excerpt]

     DOCTOR GARRIGUES offers the following as a possible explanation of the source of the gangrene which caused the death of President McKinley: “Bacillus emphysematosus is constantly found in the intestine, where it is not only harmless, but useful. In the vagina it becomes the cause of emphysematous vaginitis. If it enters the uterus of a puerpera, it gives rise to the dangerous tympania uteri, and sometimes the ominous septic emphysema. In general surgery it is the cause of one of the most dangerous wound diseases—acute septic gangrene. It is easy to imagine that in a body with lowered vitality, this bacillus wandered from the neighboring intestine to the tissues behind the stomach, where the gangrene was found.”