1893.] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 59 



p. 184). after having frequently failed to find bacteria in syphilitic 

 products by Lustgarten's method, lighted on a case of ulcerating 

 o-umma. in the pus of which he succeeded in demonstrating by 

 Lustgarten's method some bacilli. These bacilli were not stained 

 by Ehrlich's method. The author therefore presumes that he 

 has found the bacilli of syphilis. But a guinea-pig having been 

 inoculated with this pus died of tubercidosis. 



The author then raises the question whether Lustgarten, who 

 did not make any inoculations on guinea-pigs, may not have been 

 mistaken in the true character of the growths. Indeed, it was 

 found that Lustgarten's method was extremely useful for demon- 

 strating tubercle bacilli, especially in the liver. The author gives 

 a new method for preparing sulphurous acid solutions. 



MEDICAL MICROSCOPY. 



The White Corpuscles as Protectors of the Blood.— 



Dr. Werigo, when examining under the microscope, tiie blood 

 of a rabbit which he had received some minutes before, an injec- 

 tion of B. prodigiostis in the auricular vein, was surprised to 

 find the blood almost destitute of leucocytes. He repeated the 

 experiment with the same result, and became convinced that the 

 phenomenon was constant. In order to prove this, he made a 

 series of experiments in which he injected cultures of difl'erent 

 microbes into the blood, counting the leucocytes before and after- 

 ward. The main fact brought forward receives the following ex- 

 planation : The leucocytes disappear from the blood under the 

 above-named circumstances because, when they have engulfed 

 the microbes injected (which they speedily do), they are arrested 

 in the organs, especially in the liver, where they pass on the in- 

 gested material to the endothelial ceils of the organ. The rapidity 

 with which the microbes become enclosed in the leucocytes is 

 most astonishing ; it is far greater than we have been accustomed 

 to suppose. It is not the leucocytes alone, however, which 

 undertake the clearance of the microbes from the blood, for the 

 cells of the spleen pulp, and also the endothelial cells of the liver, 

 take no direct phagocytic functions. The author's researches also 

 lead him to consider that the first event after the injection of any 

 microbes, of whatever virulence, is their inclusion in cells. — The 

 British ^ledical Journal. 



MICROSCOPICAL NOTES. 



The Tariff. — We await with some anxiety the removal by 

 the new administration of the duty on microscopes, medical and 



LIPIRARYJ^j 



