248 TEXT-BOOK OF BACTERIOLOGY. 



prepared for it, and then with but very little energy of growth, yet 

 soon a diminution of these peculiarities was observable, and after 

 a few generations a luxurious growth took place on ordinary gela- 

 tin and at ordinary room temperatures. 



All these facts show it to be quite possible that it may have 

 been the genuine lepra bacillus. But, on the other hand, some serious 

 objections cannot be suppressed. The marked difference between 

 a cover-glass preparation of Bordoni's bacillus and one of lepra 

 bacilli obtained directly from a genuine case of leprosy is at once 

 apparent. In the large, thick, swollen rod-cells of Bordoni's bacil- 

 lus we will scarcely find a trace of resemblance with the slender, 

 elegant forms of the other. Of course the thought naturally arises 

 that the artificial medium has produced only involution forms, and 

 that this may explain the suspicious appearances. But when we 

 weigh against this the fact that all the endeavors of very numer- 

 ous and experienced investigators, armed with all the means and 

 appliances of modern science, have hitherto failed in arriving at 

 the same results with Bordoni, it can but seem fair to suspend 

 judgment and not to regard the artificial cultivation of the lepra 

 bacillus as a definitely-solved problem. 



On the other hand, the reproduction of the disease with all its 

 peculiarities, together with the occurrence of the bacilli, has in 

 many cases been accomplished with undoubted success by inocula- 

 tion with portions of the diseased tissue. 



Arning has experimented on the human subject. He had for 

 several years made leprosy his special study on the Sandwich 

 Islands (one of the chief seats of the .disease), and there he found an 

 opportunity to make the experiment on a criminal who had been 

 condemned to death. The man in question was not from a leprous 

 family and was in good health. He was inoculated with portions 

 of freshly-taken lepra tubercles by means of subcutaneous applica- 

 tion, and further development was then watched. After some 

 months typical leprous changes were visible near the point of inoc- 

 ulation on the upper arm. These spread gradually, and in the 

 course of five years he died of undoubted general leprosy. 



With animals, too, investigators at Konigsberg, Melcher and 

 Ortmann, obtained positive results. They transferred lepra tuber- 

 cles immediately after excision from a human subject into the an- 

 terior chamber of rabbits' eyes, and found that the animal died 

 after some months. On dissection, an extensive leprosy of the en- 

 tire viscera was found; the caecum in particular, but also the lymph 

 glands, the spleen, and the lungs were full of tubercles varying in 

 size from a pin's head to a millet seed, in which the lepra bacilli 



