LEPROSY. 331 



that Laveran and Richard, in the.ir researches, 

 seem not to have encountered the Bacillus malarice, 

 although the announcement of its discovery had 

 been made two years prior to the date of their 

 investigations, and should have prepared them to 

 find it if present in the blood of malarial cases 

 studied by them. 



LEPROSY. In 1879 Hansen, in a report to the 

 Medical Society of Christiania (Norway), stated 

 that he had " often, indeed generally, found, when 

 seeking for them in leprous tubercles, small, rod- 

 shaped bodies in the cells of the swelling." These 

 rods were not found, however, in blood recently 

 taken from leprous patients. Certain brown cells 

 were also described in this report as peculiar to 

 leprosy. In a later communication (1880) Han- 

 sen says : 



"I have by this preparation [staining with methyl- 

 violet] obtained confirmation of my earlier supposi- 

 tion, that the large brown bodies, after all, are nothing 

 else than either masses of zoogloea, or collections of 

 bacilli which are enclosed in cells. By looking at 

 Fig. 4 [Fig. 16], which represents tumor-cells treated 

 with osmic acid, drawn from preparations made in 

 1873, one is easily able to form an idea how these same 

 cells, by a constantly increasing number of small rods, 

 at last become quite overloaded, and thus obtain the 

 appearance of being filled with fine granules, since the 

 single rods cannot then be distinguished. . . . 



" Since writing the above I have also been so fortu- 

 nate as to obtain bacilli, finely colored, in a section of 

 a tubercle hardened in absolute alcohol. . Bacilli 



