334 BACTERIOLOGY. 



brings out the dark points in the protoplasmic body of 

 the bacilli and thus aids in their identification. 



For the purpose of demonstrating the Loeffler bacil- 

 lus in sections of diphtheritic membrane, both the Gram 

 method and the fibrin method of Weigert give excellent 

 results. 



PATHOGENIC PROPERTIES. When inoculated sub- 

 cutaneously into the bodies of susceptible animals the 

 result is not the production of septicaemia, as is seen to 

 follow the introduction into animals of certain other 

 organisms with which we shall have to deal, but the 

 bacillus of diphtheria remains localized at the point 

 of inoculation, rarely disseminating further than the 

 nearest lymphatic glands. It develops at the point in the 

 tissues at which it is deposited, and during its develop- 

 ment gives rise to changes in the tissues which result 

 entirely from the absorption of poisonous albumins pro- 

 duced by the bacilli in the course of their development. 



In a certain number of cases 1 diphtheria bacilli have 

 been found in the blood and internal organs of individ- 

 uals dead of the disease; but all that has been learned 

 from careful study of the secondary manifestations of 

 diphtheria tends to the opinion that they are in no way 

 dependent upon the immediate presence of bacteria, and 

 that the occasional appearance of diphtheria bacilli in 

 the internal organs is in all probability accidental, and 

 usually unimportant. 



By special methods of inoculation 2 (the injection of 



1 Frosch : Die Verbreitung des Diphtherie-bacillus im KOrper des Mensclien 

 Zeit. fur Hygiene und Infectionskrankheiten, 1893, Bd. xiii. pp. 49-52. Booker : 

 Archives of Pediatrics, Aug. 1893. Wright and Stokes : Boston Med. and Surg. 

 Journ., March and April, 1895. 



2 Abbott and Ghriskey : A Contribution to the Pathology of Experimental 

 Diphthetria. The Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin, No. 30, April, 1893. 



