MICROPHYTES FOUND IN THE BLOOD. 



895 



ments, between the spirillum of recurrent fever-blood and 

 Spirillim {Spirochcete) j^^^catile, which had been found by 

 Ehrenberg in water many years ago.^ Cohn himself had subse. 



Fig. 15. Fig. 16. 



Fig. 15. — Spirillum {Spirochaile) Obermeieri. The spirilla among blood- 

 cells * * ill active movement. Those marked * sketched a short 

 time before the cessation of the fever (after Weigert ; published by 

 Cohu). X GOO diam. 



Fig. 16. — Spirillim {Spirochete) pUcatile (after Cohn). x 650_diam. 



quently found it in water, and also in the mouth — in the mucus 

 surrounding the teeth.- A figure of this spirillum by Cohu is 

 reproduced for convenience of comparison^ (fig. ]6). 



It will be recollected that the late Dr. Obermeier himself had 

 recognised the spirillum in the mucus from the mouth of recur- 

 rent fever patients, possibly having overlooked the circumstance 

 that its presence in this fluid was not an abnormality. Manas- 

 seiu,^ who, at St. Petersburg, has had favorable opportunities 

 for observation, expresses himself most strongly against the sup- 

 position that this microphyte is anything more than an epi- 

 phenomenon in recurrent fever. Not only was it absent from 

 the blood in certain of the cases of fever examined by himself 

 and others, but spirilla precisely similar to those found in other 

 cases were, during a period of some months, constantly present 

 in the secretion which flowed on pressure from an abscess which 



1 Cohn's ' Beitrage,' Band i, Heft. 3, IS 75, p. 197. 



2 Ditto, Band i, Heft. 2, 1S72, p. 180. 



^ Ehrenberg suggested that the term Spirillum should be restricted to 

 such of the Schizomycetes as manifested spiral movements without flexi- 

 bility, and for those of the group which were distinctly flexible he proposed 

 the term Spiroclicete. As, however, the distinction is merely a matter of 

 degree, spirilla also manifesting a greater or less amount of flexibility, I 

 have adhered to Dujardin's classification. Fomental (' Etude sur les Mi- 

 crozoaires,' 1874) adopts the older and simpler term for a like reason. 



■* 'St. Petersburg, mediciu, Wochenschrift,' No. IS, 1876. 



