A case of pseudo-lupus vulgaris caused by a blastomyces / by T. Caspar Gilchrist and William Royal Stokes.

  • Thomas C. Gilchrist
Date:
[1898?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A case of pseudo-lupus vulgaris caused by a blastomyces / by T. Caspar Gilchrist and William Royal Stokes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and show minute prickles, thus resembling a number of minute white chestnut burrs scattered over the medium. They can attain the size of a split pea; they grow about two millimetres above the surface, and, if numerous, form a confluent membrane, suggesting a portion of the skin of a white mouse stretched over the surface of the medium. The growth is always firmly adherent to its substratum, and portions of the latter material are often removed with the colonies. After the cultures have been passed through several generations of animals the loss of the mycelium causes these masses to appear as moist, flat gelatinous drops spread over the surface of the medium. In clear fluid cultures, for example, with bouillon, the parasite forms a thick interlacing meshwork through the medium, and no individual bodies can be found in the culture fluid. In plate agar cultures the colonies show under a low magnifying power a granular centre from whose periphery fine ramifying branches grow out. Colonies also develop readily on plain nutrient gelatine, 20 per cent, beer-wort gelatine, plain agar, 5 per cent, beer-wort agar, bouillon, fluid beer-wort (unfermented beer), Dunham’s solution, milk, agar made from infusions of the various organs, Loeffler’s blood-serum mixture, and human blood serum. Milk is not coagulated nor acidulated; no indol forms in Dunham’s solution, and gelatine is not liquefied. ISTo alcoholic fermentation occurred, nor was the formation of any gas observed after several weeks growth in the fermentation tubes containing glucose, lac¬ tose and saccharose bouillon. Although cultures have been left for several months on apparently dried-up tubes, yet when transferred at the end of this time they grew luxuriantly, and in one case even proved pathogenic after this length of time. The parasite will not grow as a strict anaerobe. This was proven by making several stab cultures into glycerine agar and covering the sur¬ face with melted gelatine. This tube was then placed in a Buchner jar with pyrogallic acid and KOH, and allowed to remain for one month at room temperature. At the end of this time the bodies introduced showed no evidence of increase. The organisms develop in about one month when subjected to a tem¬ perature but slightly above freezing, and grow most favorably at a tem¬ perature ranging from 18-36° C. Their maximum temperature for growth is 40° C. INOCULATION OF ANIMALS. Fresh bits of tissue were introduced subcutaneously into a white mouse and a guinea-pig. The mouse died in 24 hours of a pneumo-