432 Gonorrhea 



Morphology. The organisms occur in pairs. Bach pair 

 of young cocci is composed of two spherical organisms, but 

 as they grow older the inner surfaces become flattened and 

 separated from one another by a narrow interval, so that 

 they somewhat resemble a coffee-bean. Sometimes tetrads 

 are seen, the group no doubt resulting from the division of 

 a pair. A pair of the cocci resembles the German biscuit, 

 and is described by the Germans as semmelfdrmig. 



The gonococci are small, the length of one of the coffee- 

 bean cocci being about 1.6 ^, its breadth about 0.8 ^. They 

 are not motile, nor provided with flagella, and are without 

 spores. 



Quite as characteristic as the form of the organism is its 

 relation to the cells. In most of the inflammatory exudates 



Fig- 135- Gonococci in urethral pus. 



the gonococci are contained either in epithelial cells or in 

 leukocytes, very few of them lying free. This intracellular 

 position is supposed to depend upon active phagocytosis of 

 the cocci by the cells. It may not obtain in old lesions. 



Staining. They stain readily with all the aqueous solu- 

 tions of the anilin dyes best with rather weak solutions, 

 but not by Gram's method. 



The organisms contained in pus can be beautifully shown 

 by first treating the prepared film with alcoholic eosin, and 

 then with LofHer's alkaline methylene-blue. A differential 

 color test can be made by staining the film by Gram's method 

 and then with aqueous Bismarck-brown, or, what may be still 

 better, with 3 per cent, aqueous solution of pyronin. Ordi- 



