I - r- 



Note on a Specimen of Bacillus tuberculosus prepared 



by Dr. Gibbes' method. 



By G. 0. Karop, M.R.C.S., &o. 



{Communicated September 22, 1882.) 



Although, as a general rule, I am adverse to the discussion of 

 medical topics in a non-medical society, I thought that as Mr. 

 dirties had kindly offered to show a specimen of Bacillus tuber- 

 culosus for me, it would be but right on my part to say a few words 

 concerning it, if I were called upon to do so. As many of you are 

 doubtless aware, the theory of the bacterial origin of disease is at 

 present occupying the attention of scientists and pathologists in all 

 parts of the world, and although it is comparatively quite a new 

 idea, the literature of the subject has already become immense. It 

 may well, too, engage the sympathy of the laity, for no other theory 

 seems so hopeful as this to give us a clue towards the abolition of 

 many diseases which affect all conditions and classes of the human 

 race. 



Everybody has heard or read something of the researches of 

 Pasteur and others on the subject of fowl-cholera, spirillum or 

 splenic fever, &c, in sheep and other domestic animals, and there- 

 fore I need only say that the present tendency of investigation in 

 this direction is to show that every specific disease or group of 

 diseases is characterised by a special bacillus, microzyme or germ 

 which developes rapidly in the blood or tissues and may so pervert 

 nutrition or upset function as to destroy life. 



The majority, if not the whole, are contagious or capable of in- 

 oculation, and not the least wonderful thing about some of them at 

 least, is the fact that after they have been cultivated or grown in 

 successive crops, in some suitable medium, they lose their fatal 

 character, and if they are then inoculated, only produce mild 

 symptoms, and are preventative against an attack of the original 

 form of the disease. 



Recently, Koch, of Berlin, one of the most eminent investigators 

 in this direction, made the startling discovery that tubercular con- 



