450 BACTERIA IN SURGICAL LESIONS. 



dried, and stained with an aniline dye. Of the 

 abscesses examined, thirteen were 



" Chronic typical cold abscesses, whose duration could 

 be measured by months, proceeding from chronic carious 

 disease of bone, scrofulous lymphatic glands, and such 

 like. In none of them were any organisms found. 



" Four were somewhat chronic abscesses, whose dura- 

 tion could be measured by weeks ; and which had fol- 

 lowed diseases more or less allied to, or complicated 

 with, forms of blood-poisoning and hectic, such as tonsil- 

 itis, phthisis, scarlatina, erysipelas, typhoid fever, and 

 diphtheria. All of these contained micrococci, and were 

 evidently the same as the next form. 



" Lastly, sixty-five were acute abscesses, whose dura- 

 tion could be measured by days, from all parts of the 

 body. Every one of these contained micrococci." 



The cocci were found (a) in chains, usually of five 

 or six elements, but often much longer in one 

 case three hundred and twenty-one cocci were 

 counted in a single chain; (b) in groups, " like the 

 roe of a fish" zoogloea masses; (c) in groups of 

 three or four, " many of which were clearly, from 

 the equal size and relative positions of the cocci, 

 formed by a direct division into fours, or even, 

 though more rarely, into threes ; " (d) in some 

 cases unusually large oval cocci were found, chiefly 

 in pairs. " For the most part these varieties ex- 

 isted in separate abscesses, but it frequently 

 occurred that an abscess contained both chains and 

 groups. Out of sixty-four abscesses where this 

 point was specially noted, seventeen contained 



