Micro-organisms and disease : an introduction into the study of specific micro-organisms / by E. Klein.

Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Micro-organisms and disease : an introduction into the study of specific micro-organisms / by E. Klein. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    the peripheral portion of the cell. But according to Koch the bacilli by and by disappear again from the giant-cells. The bacilli do not show any motility and often include Bpores; they are thus capable of forming spores within the body. Owing to these spores, human plithisical sputum re- tains its virulence even after drying for considerable periods. Koch cultivated the bacilli artificially, i.e. outside the body, and by carrying on the cultivation for several successive trans- missions succeeded in isolating and clearing them from the tuberculous tissue. These pure bacilli, no matter how many times they have been transferred, no matter how far removed from their original breeding-ground, always produced the cha- racteristic disease when inoculated into suitable animals. The cultivation ■ succeeded equally with material derived from human tubercles, from bovine tubercles, and from the artifici- ally-induced tuberculosis of guinea-pigs. The bacilli grow well at a temperature varying between and 39° C. in solid serum, Agar-Agar peptone mixture, and solidified hydrocele fluid.^ (See Chapter II.) An incision is made into a tubercle with clean (overheated) scissors, and a particle of a tubercle is taken up with the point of a clean (overheated) needle and deposited on the top of one of these sterile solid media kept in a test-tube plugged with sterile cotton-wool. After keeping it for ten days to a fortnight in the incubator at 37°-—39° C. the first traces of growth make their appearance in the shape of small dry whitish scales, which gradually increase in size until they coalesce. These scales are made up of the typical ttibercle- bacilli lying closely side by side ; some of the bacilli are longer, others shorter, and many of them have spores. New cultures may be established fi'om these bacillL Inoculation with them or with further cultivations into the subcutaneous tissue, peritoneal or pleural cavity of guinea-pigs and rabbits, produces after three, four, or more weeks, the typical lesions characteristic of artificial tuberculosis ; namely, swollen lym- phatic glands near the seat of inoculation, with subsequent caseation and ulceration; enlargement of the spleen due to numerous whitish tubercles, the larger ones caseous ; enlarge- ment of the liver, which is mottled by the presence of uni- formly distril ited whitish points and streaks, which by and by become confluent and caseous ; tuberculosis of the peritoneum ; isolated tubercles in the lungs, at first grey and transparent, ' Solidified hydrocele fluid has been successfully used for the cultivation of the tubercle-bacilli, not by Koch, but by my friend Mr Makins of St. Thomas's Houpital.