180 THE MICROSCOPE. 



will be universally regarded as a powerful aid to the diagnostician; 

 meanwhile I would bespeak from the profession of Georgia a more 

 lively interest in the use of the clinical microscope. 



As a rule I examine the blood of all my patients, and I hope at 

 some future time to give some of the clinical results of these obser- 

 vations, but in the meantime would refer my readers to special 

 works on the subject. The study of certain diseases in this connec- 

 tion, such as consumption, syphilis, etc., has been to me a subject of 

 special interest. Occasionally, that is in some specimens of blood, I 

 meet with a red corpuscle, which becomes crenelated long before the 

 others, and has an independent motion, twirling first in one direc- 

 tion and then in another, rotating and vibrating with movements 

 not unlike that given by a squirrel to a nut which it is nibbling. 

 What is the cause of these movements I am unable to say. I have 

 thought it might be due to a bacterium, but my instrument is not of 

 sufficient power to solve the problem. 



Up to this time I have not found these moving corpuscles ex- 

 cept in the blood of syphilitic patients. I do not wish to be under- 

 stood as saying or proposing this as a sign or one of the signs of 

 syphilis, but only say that I have not yet found it outside of those 

 persons having a syphilitic history. 



A patient, married, who had been for some time under treat- 

 ment for uterine displacement, and who never had the least abrasion, 

 nor any thing simulating a primary sore, nor yet even a vaginal dis- 

 charge, consulted me for, as she expressed it, "falling away, being 

 weak and out of condition." Her complexion was sallow, tempera- 

 ture two degrees above normal; pulse 102; loss of appetite, thirst, 

 general malaise, but no defined pain; small, round, brownish spots 

 appeared all over the limbs and body. These spots would some- 

 times subside, appearing pale pink under the skin. There was 

 slight sibilant ronchus in the right lung. The urine presented no 

 special abnormality. 



The examination of the blood showed an unhealthy condition 

 of the red corpuscles, and the moving vibrating corpuscles spoken of 

 elsewhere; moreover I found the bodies named by Salisbury — crypta 

 syphilitica. Under these circumstances I had no hesitation in 

 placing her on an anti-syphilitic treatment. The subsequent pro- 

 gress of the case fully corroborated the correctness of the diagnosis. 

 This case I may lay before the Association on some future occasion 

 in its details. 



