174 MICRO-ORGANISMS AND DISEASE. [CHAP. 



Zeitschrift f. Thierheil, &c., 1883), but it is not experimentally proved 

 that human beings can contract human tuberculosis by feeding on milk 

 and flesh derived from tuberculous animals. 



(n) Bacillus of Syphilis. Lustgarten described (Med. Jahrb. derk. k. 

 Gfsellsch. d. Aerzte. Vienna, 1885) peculiar bacilli as occurring in 

 syphilitic products. They resemble in size and aspect very much the 

 tubercle-bacilli ; their ends are slightly thickened, and they often show 

 nodosities ; these bacilli are never found free between the tissue elements, 

 but always inclosed in cells, generally singly or in couples, or rarely in 

 groups, but their total number in a given section is always small. The 

 peculiarities they show in their mode of staining, and which they share 

 with tubercle-bacilli and leprosy- bacilli, have been mentioned in 

 Chapter I. De Giacomi (Schweizer Correspondenzblatt, xv. 12) has 

 fully confirmed the statements of Lustgarten. His method of staining 

 the syphilis-bacilli has been mentioned in Chapter I. 



Doutrelepont and Schiitz (Deutsche Med. Woch. 1885, No. 19) have 

 also demonstrated the occurrence of these same bacilli by simply stain- 

 ing sections made of syphilitic tissues in a watery I per cent, solution 

 of gentian- violet with subsequent contrast staining by safranin. 



On the other hand Cornil, and particularly MM. Alvarez and Tavel, 

 state that a bacillus identical in mode of staining, size, and aspect with 

 the one described by Lustgarten as the specific syphilis-bacillus, has 

 been found by them in some normal secretions (Brit. Med. Journ. 

 Oct. 17, 1885). 



(0) Bacillus of Foulbrood. Messrs. F. Cheshire and W. Cheyne 

 described (Microsc. Journ. August, 1885) a peculiar bacillus which 

 occurs in the tissues and juices of bees, and especially their larvae, which 

 sometimes in beehives become affected with, and die of, the disease 

 known as ' ' foulbrood. " This bacillus shows certain peculiarities in its 

 mode of growth in nutritive gelatine and Agar-Agar, and is capable of 

 forming spores. With such cultivations the disease was reproduced in 

 healthy bees. 



() The Comma-Bacillus of Asiatic Cholera. Koch has 

 discovered in the evacuations of persons affected with acute 

 Asiatic cholera a peculiar vibrio, which he called comma- 

 bacillus, and of which he states that it is intimately connected 

 with the causation of the disease. Koch isolated these 

 comma-bacilli from the mucus-flakes of the fluid contents 



