THE HIGHER BACTERIA 967 



examination. Fresh preparations may be examined after staining 

 with Gram's stain. Observed under the microscope, the granules 

 appear as rosette-like masses, the centers of which are quite opaque 

 and dense, appearing to be made up of a closely meshed network 

 of filaments. Around the margins there are found radially arranged 

 striations which in many cases end in characteristically club-shaped 

 bodies. Inside of the central network there are often seen coccoid 

 or spore-like bodies which have been variously interpreted as spores, 

 as degeneration products, and as separate, cocci fortuitously found 

 in symbiosis with the actinomyces. Individually considered, the 

 central filaments have approximately the thickness of an anthrax 

 bacillus and are, according to Babes, 21 composed of a sheath within 



FIG. 105. BRANCHING FILAMENTS OF ACTINOMYCES. (After Wright and Brown.) 



which the protoplasm contains numerous and different sized 

 granules. 



About the periphery of the granules the free ends of the filaments 

 become gradually thickened to form the so-called actinomycosis 

 ' ' clubs. ' ' These clubs, according to most observers, must be regarded 

 as hyaline thickenings of the sheaths of the threads and are believed 

 to represent a form of degeneration and not, as some of the earlier 

 observers believed, organs of reproduction. They are homogeneous, 

 and in the smaller and presumably younger granules are extremely 

 fragile and soluble in water. In older lesions, especially in those 

 of cattle, the clubs are more resistant and less easily destroyed. 



They appear only in, the parasites taken from active lesions in 

 animals or man, or, as Wright 22 has found, from, cultures to which 



21 Bales, Yirch. Arch., 105, 1886. 



22 J. H. Wright, Jour. Med. Res., 1905, vii, 349. 



