The microscopic organisms found in the blood of man and animals and their relation to disease. / By Timothy Richards Lewis.

  • Timothy Richards Lewis
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The microscopic organisms found in the blood of man and animals and their relation to disease. / By Timothy Richards Lewis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    on the tip of a scalpel, to a slide. A small quantity of a half per cent, solution of salt and distilled water was added, in order to dilute the preparation, and, by separating the corpuscles, render it easier to see any foreign matters that might exist in the serum. There were numerous motionless bacilli varying from 4 to 20|«- in length by 8 to 1*4/* in width, the thicker variety predominating (Plate I, fig. 9). The majority consisted of short stiff rods, 5'5]«, in length, or double this length; in the latter case often manifesting indications of a tendency to bend towards the centre. There were also a few thicker rods than these scattered throughout the preparation. An hour having been spent in the examination of this slide, it became apparent that the bacilli were more numerous on it than when the examination commenced. It was then set aside in a moist chamber. . A similar slide was prepared consisting of just a trace of the blood mixed with fresh aqueous humor, and placed in the same chamber. On the following morning this slide, to which the half per cent, salt solution had been added, was re-examined, and it was found itf iecold^da^* solution added to ^j^^t the filaments had grown greatly in length and somewhat in thickness (Plate I, fig. 10); in some instances the filaments extended across the field of the microscope. All the filaments were motionless and almost translucent, quite devoid of granularity, and it was only in some places that a joint could be distinguished. 'No re- fringent molecule appeared in any of- these long filaments, but there were some short, pale, transparent rods rolling about in the preparation, and in these glistening bodies were found (Plate I, fig. 12). Some of these rods, or segments, were 8^* long and contained a bright blue (as seen with Hartnack's No. 9 immer- sion objective) ' spore,' 2j«. in length by Ip- in width, and other segments, about the same length, contained two. Mixed with these were short, translucent staves, with a distinct joint, some with two ' spores,' separated by a partition, and others shorter (4*5i«-) with only one. By the next day the filaments were broken down and the preparation consisted chiefly of a multitude of active Bacterium termo. The other slide, which had been prepared with aqueous humor, was like- wise examined on the following day. The filaments to^itt^oonXy^^ ^^^^^ were not SO long as in the other preparation, and there appeared to be a decided tendency towards