An introduction to pathology and morbid anatomy / by T. Henry Green.
- Green, T. Henry (Thomas Henry), 1841-1923
- Date:
- 1889
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An introduction to pathology and morbid anatomy / by T. Henry Green. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![opaque with slightly swollen follicles and the intestinal contents like gruel — this happened only in the most acute cases, and the gruel-like contents presented almost a pure cultivation of the parasite presently to be described. Koch only very exception- ally found in the intestines any fluid so thin as to be compar- able with rice-water. In cases of somewhat longer duration he found the follicles and Peyer's patches surrounded by zones of hypersemia, soon running together into red patches; and ultimately, in the longest cases, the small intestine became intensely congested, the congestion being most marked above the ileo-coecal valve and dying away in the upward direction. With these changes the intestinal contents became increas- ingly bloody, and finally exhaled a distinctly putrefactive odour, whilst the parasite above referred to was more or less replaced by other bacterial forms. In the stage of patchy redness, sections of the mucosa parallel to its surface showed that the redness corresponded to an invasion of the epithelium of the tubular glands by the parasite found in the intestine in the most acute cases : they were found lying between the epithelium and the basement membrane. This bacterium, therefore, soon attracted attention by its definite form and by its apparent constancy. Characteristics of the Cholera spirillum.—The bac- terium is about one-half to two-thirds the length of a tubercle bacillus, but decidedly thicker (about .5 fx), and it presents a curve, usually about equal to that of a comma (hence the first name—comma-bacillus), but sometimes amounting to a semi- circle. It multiplies by transverse division, and the segments separate from each other at once upon gelatinous media or the intestinal mucosa ; if two remain united they form an S, their curves being in opposite directions. When vegetating in good nutritive fluids, however, the segment-cells remain united until they form deUcate spirals of some length, very like the spiril- lum of Obermeier—in fact, Koch says that side by side under the microscope he could not distinguish them. Each segment- cell forms about half a turn of a spiral form, and the width of the s[ira] is about equal to the thickness of a cell. Both single cells and spirals are actively mobile. It grows well upon all](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20390701_0592.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
