TREATMENT OF BACTERIOLOGICAL MATERIAL. 107 



allowed to flow into a sterile test-tube. If test-tubes 

 sterilised in a laboratory are not at hand, an ordinary test- 

 tube may be a quarter filled with water, which is then 

 boiled well over a spirit-lamp. The tube is then emptied 

 and plugged with a plug of cotton wool, the outside of 

 which has been singed in a flame. Small stoppered 

 bottles may be boiled and used in the same way. A 

 discharge to be examined may be so small in quantity as 

 to make the procedure described impracticable. It may 

 be caught on a piece of sterile plain gauze, or of plain 

 absorbent wool which is then placed in a sterile vessel. 

 Wool or gauze used for this purpose, or for swobbing out, 

 say the throat, to obtain shreds of suspicious matter, must 

 have no antiseptic impregnated in it, as the latter may 

 kill the bacteria present and make culture 

 experiments impossible. 



Fluids from the body cavities, urine, etc., 

 may be secured with sterile pipettes. To 

 make one of these, take nine inches of 

 ordinary quill glass-tubing, draw out one 

 end to a capillary diameter, and place a 

 little plug of cotton wool in the other end. 

 Insert this tube through the cotton plug 

 of an ordinary test-tube and sterilise by heat. 

 To use it, remove test-tube plug with the 

 quill tube in its centre, suck up some of 

 the fluid into the latter, and replace in its 

 former position in the test-tube (Fig. 37). 

 Another method very convenient for trans- 

 port is to make two constrictions on the 

 glass tube at suitable distances, according 

 to the amount of fluid to be taken. The tube*" and' pipette 

 fluid is then drawn up into the part between arranged for obtain- 

 the constrictions, but so as not to fill it com- 

 pletely. The tube is then broken through 

 at both constrictions and the thin ends are sealed by heat- 

 ing in a flame. 



Solid organs to be examined should, if possible, be 



FIG. 37. Test- 



