570 ON MICRO-ORGANISMS IN TISSUES OF DISEASED HORSES 



under high powers of the miscroscope, at first glance, two morpho- 

 logically different forms of bacteria. Their relative number to one 

 another was not the same in all the preparations made ; in this 

 section the one, in that section the other was predominant ; 

 in others again both were nearly equally distributed. Gener- 

 ally speaking, their numbers were enormous throughout, notably 

 in the surrounding tissue or capsule of the organs in ques- 

 tion, where they were packed in dense masses. Tn the interior 

 of the gland they were found partly detached or in short lines, 

 partly grouped in small colonies, or forming elongated, straight or 

 curved tracts, an appearance which would make it probable that 

 they were located in capillary vessels. 



The first of these bacterial forms is very conspicuous by its size 

 as well as by its behaviour when treated with aniline dyes. It is 

 a bacillus, about "OOS-'OOiS mm. long, (that is on the average 

 somewhat more than half the diameter of a human red blood- 

 corpuscle), and about '001 mm. wide. It has cylinder-shape, 

 rounded ofi" at the extremities ; some few specimens show the central 

 part or that part towards one of the ends very slightly thickened 

 or swollen. On being stained and mounted lege artis, the bacilli 

 offer a most peculiar appearance. There are two portions or 

 divisions easily distinguishable in them. The one, of from a third 

 to a half of the length of the entire rods, stands out very promi- 

 nently by being deeply stained ; it occupies the one end of the 

 latter, and it is only seldom that this portion is situated some little 

 distance away from the end part of that half of the rods. The 

 other portion or division proves to be stained only at its periphery, 

 and only very faintly. In this way the organisms appear as capitate 

 rods, yet the width of the chromatophilous heads does not exceed 

 that of the rods in general. One might also say, these microbes 

 appear, in the coloured preparations, under the image of a sheath 

 which contains that intensely coloured portion at one end. This 



