1893.] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 237 



Bacillus Tuberculi. Prepare a solution of mercury bichloride 

 1 : 2000. Shake a portion of this solution in a test-tube along 

 with a few drops of aniline oil, and filter off. To 10 ccm. of this 

 filtrate, add 1 ccm. of a 10 per cent solution in absolute alcohol 

 of gentian violet, methyl violet, or fuchsin. The material to be 

 examined is placed for five minutes in this staining solution, 

 care being taken to keep the watch-glass or other container cov- 

 ered during the immersion. The section, cover-glass prepara- 

 tion, or other material, is then washed in water and is ready for 

 the complimentary stain. For this the reporters recommend a 

 solution of malachite green or eosin in the sublimate solution, 

 first made, 6 eg. of the dry color to 60 gm. sublimate solution. 

 The preparation must be barely dipped into this solution for 

 one or two seconds at the outside. The total tinting ought not 

 to occupy over six minutes, and a person used to doing such 

 work can get the specimen ready in five and half minutes, in- 

 cluding washing, etc. The results are everything that can be 

 wished. To show tubercle bacilli in the structures (kidney, 

 lung, etc.,) macerate the latter for two days in absolute alcohol. 

 Remove and place in a chloroform solution of paraffin (paraffin, 

 5 parts, chloroform, 1 part), and keep at a temperature of 55° C. 

 for a half-hour to an hour. Remove, and place in pure melted 

 paraffin and keep in it at a similar temperature for twenty min- 

 utes. Embed, in the usual way, in paraffin. Clean the sections 

 first with xylol, then with absolute alcohol, and finally with 

 water. They are now ready for staining, as already detailed. 

 Cover-glass preparations of sputa are fixed in the usual way, by 

 being carried thrice through an alcohol flame. The stained 

 sections can be examined directly with glycerine as a medium 

 or maj' be prepared by the well-known methods for mounting 

 in balsam. The editor of the Druggist, who has hitherto used 

 Glorieux's method for rapid staining, has given the above 

 method a trial, and can confirm that it leaves nothing to be de- 

 sired in point of sharp, clear coloration of the bacilli. While 

 not quite as rapid as the method of Glorieux, it is far less liable 

 to failure, and is, beside, free from the disagreeable accidents 

 that sometimes occur in the rapid handling of the concentrated 

 phenol solution of methyl blue, both of which leave intense 

 stains on the fingers when the latter come into contact with 

 them. — National Druggist 



