BY DR. OSCAR KATZ. 573 



of the respective individuals, cannot be definitely settled by what 

 I was able to ascertain. However, it is not at all impossible, and 

 I rather incline to that view, that as in typhoid fever, the 

 occurrence of these micro-oi'ganisms in the mesenteric glands 

 may be interpreted. I do not think it probable for them to be 

 merely accidental. I want especially to draw attention to the 

 peculiar morphological features of the bacteria, which I do not 

 remember to have ever seen in preparations or figures, or noticed 

 in descriptions. 



Sections out of the fragments of spZeew, which oflfered on the 

 cut-surface a marbled or "honey-combed" appearance, caused by 

 greyish-dirty necrotised masses alternating with brownish-red tissue 

 (as seen in alcohol), yielded no such bacteria as did the mesenteric 

 glands, but more or less numerous aggregations of another kind. 

 It consists of streptococci. They readily stain with aniline dyes, 

 for instance Loeffler's alkaline methylene-blue. On employing 

 Oram's method (s. above), one finds them to remain coloured, and 

 it is in this way that one procures the finest and most instructive 

 preparations. In a section thus prepared one sees, at a low amplifica- 

 cation (for instance of 70 diam.), a number of deep-blue foci amid 

 the yellowish-grey tissue of the spleen, and irregularly distributed in 

 the same. In some preparations they were very plentiful, in 

 others scarce. They are of an irregular, roundish or elongated 

 shape, in the latter case up to '3 mm. long, whereas the smallest 

 groups measure '01 mm. and still less. Under high powers these 

 groups or foci are found to be made up of aggregations of minute, 

 about -00045 mm. large, isodiametrical cocci (hence they are about 

 the fourteenth part of the diameter of a human red blood-corpuscle). 

 As a rule, they form more or less elongated stx'ings or chains, 

 which are interlaced with one another in different ways. Such 

 chains are especially distinct at the margins of the aggregations ; 

 in the interior of the latter, particularly if dense, the micrococci are 

 often isolated or in two's. Besides these masses which, as such, can 



