On a haematazoon inhabiting human blood : its relation to chyluria and other diseases.

  • Timothy Richards Lewis
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On a haematazoon inhabiting human blood : its relation to chyluria and other diseases. 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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    should be taken to keep the fine-adjustment screw constantly moving, so as to examine the deeper as well as the superficial layer of fluid in each field as it passes under observation. Sliould anything unusual be observ- ed, the low power must be replaced by a J or, better, a ^ objective.* In order to keep the active Haematozoon under observation for some hours, a camel-hair pencil dipped in a solution of Canada-balsam or mastic in chloroform, should be passed along the edges of the covering glass, so as to prevent evaporation, and the formation of air spaces in the preparation. The appearance presented by the Haematozoon The general aspect of whcU first SCCU amOUg thc blood the Haematozoon dur- , -jit* ■ , ^^^ , ingiife. corpusclcs, m thc living state, will not readily be forgotten and cannot possibly be mistaken for anything else. The remark made by a young Ben- galee student on my requesting him to look into the microscope and tell me what he saw— He is an incompletely developed snake, evidently very young, though very active—so aptly describes the object as thus witnessed, that I feel sure that any one seeing the * It may seem superfluous to draw attention to the similarity which exists between some vegetable fibres and some of the microscopic * Filariae,' when the latter are not alive; nevertheless a very good objective is frequently required to distinguish them with certainty, as any one may prove for himself by subjecting the torn fluffy ed<res of a piece of blotting-paper to microscopic examination. Filaria- like fibrils will frequently be found. A mistake of this kind is referred to by Leuckart as having occurred quite recently. A paper was published announcing the discovery of a filaria-like nematode in the intestines, blood, aiid tissues of a patient, which was expected to })rove as dangerous to life as the Trichina spiralis. These parasites subse- quently ])roved to be nothing more than vegetable hairs! ' Die Menschlichen Para^iten,' Vol. II, i)art 1, p. 151.