8 



debris of the fatty l)odies is apparent in the form of large irregular 

 cells, floating freely in the fluid ; but these cells themselves will 

 be found to contain immense numbers of the minute spheres al- 

 ready mentioned. In fact, if a little portion of the soft remnant 

 of the fatty bodies be removed, spread upon a cover, and ex- 

 amined with a power of a thousand diameters, it will be seen that 

 the cells of these organs are the seat of an extreme degenera- 

 tion, the entire contents of many of them being wholly replaced 

 by the spherical granules mentioned above. Occasionally a cell 

 containing a nucleus will be found, but more commonly all dis- 

 tinction of contents has disappeared. 



If the body of a diseased larva be cut across and a cover glass 

 be pressed against the cut end of the intestine, or, still better, if 

 the larva be opened lengthwise, and the stomach removed and laid 

 open separately, so that a droplet of the pure contents of the ali- 

 mentary canal may be obtained, the fluid portion of these contents 

 will be seen to swarm with infinitesimal granules similar in appear- 

 ance to those found in the blood, except that they are, on an aver- 

 age, often appreciably larger and are occasionally more or less oval 

 in outline. These same forms may also be found in the fluid ex- 

 creta escaping from the vent of the still living larva. If the speci- 

 men has been dead some time, so that the sooty discoloration of 

 the surface has occurred, the fluids both of the alimentary canal 

 and of the body at large will often be found to contain, besides 

 myriads of the above spherules, various other forms clearly recog- 

 nizable as septic bacteria, — among these, members of the genus 

 Bacterium, easily distinguishable by their oval form and by the 

 manner in which they actively propel themselves across the field of 

 the microscope. Rod-like bacilli may also appear in the fluids at 

 this time, equally active, and evidently moving by means of flagella, 

 especially in the vicinity of the bubbles of air which may be in- 

 cluded in the fluid under the cover glass. Occasionally these latter 

 bacterial forms may be found in smaller numbers even before 

 death, very rarely in the perivisceral fluids, but not very uncom- 

 monly in the contents of the alimentary canal. Still they are in- 

 finitely less abundant than the Micrococcus-like spheres already 

 mentioned, even long after the death of the larva. 



The most characteristic post mortem phenomenon is the rapid 

 softening, decay, and deliquescence of the body, the whole of which 

 may be converted, in an hour or two after death, into a dirty fluid 

 mass which the rotten skin is barely sufficient to hold together. 

 This breaks at a touch, allowing the fluid contents to escape. 



More recent studies of transverse sections of the bodies of dis- 

 eased larvse, prepared as microscope slides, have, given me a num- 

 ber of additional interesting facts with respect to the pathological 

 conditions of this disease, a brief account of which may with pro- 

 priety be given here. 



As determined by a study of the tissues of larv?e diseased but far 

 from dead, the principal center of the affection was seen to be in 

 the alimentary canal, the fatty bodies, and the blood. The mucous 

 membrane of the pharynx, oesophagus, and rectum was but little 



