ACTINOMYCOSIS. 359 



and hens' eggs, and when raw, as well as when boiled for three 

 or four minutes. The shell of the egg is carefully cleansed by 

 means of mercuric chlorid and sterile water, an opening is bored 

 into one end by means of a flamed needle, and a platinum wire 

 mounted with actinomyces-material is introduced deeply into 

 the egg, in which it is moved to and fro several times. The 

 opening made into the inoculated egg is closed with sealing- 

 wax, and the egg, with the perforated end upward, is placed in 

 the thermostat. After the lapse of from nine to twenty-eight 

 days the egg will be found odorless, without formation of gas, 

 and not discolored. There will be seen small, opaque, whitish 

 clumps and dots ranging in size up to that of a pinhead, in the 

 raw egg, in both the white and the yolk, and in the boiled egg 

 at the junction between the two ; or there may be present in the 

 liquid white of the unboiled egg lines and streaks of a turbid 

 mass resembling nasal mucus; or, finally, the line of inoculation 

 and the central surface of the coagulated albumin may become 

 occupied by a smeary, granular mass. 



On microscopic examination Wolff and Israel found the agar- 

 cultures made up of short rods, mostly straight, but often, also, 

 comma-shaped, or even more markedly curved. These vary in 

 length and thickness, plump and thick rods lying side by side 

 with short and thin and long and thick rods. Often the rods 

 present a globular or an olive-shaped enlargement at one ex- 

 tremity. In addition to the rods, there are found a small num- 

 ber of filaments, rarely rectilinear, mostly wavy and curved, or 

 also spiral. While these are uncommon upon agar, the occur- 

 rence of beautiful, long, filamentous networks is usual in 

 egg-cultures. The filaments, also, whose convolution often 

 exhibits a radial arrangement at the periphery, at times present 

 a knob-like enlargement at the extremity. They, as well as the 

 short rods, together with the terminal enlargements, can be 

 stained both by Gram's method and with fuchsin. Filaments 

 stained for an hour with heated carbolfuchsin exhibit at times 

 segmentation into longer or shorter rods, ranging in size down to 

 that of the shortest coccus-like bodies, arranged irregularly, and 

 separated by unstained intervals of varying length. In addition 

 to the filamentous network, the rods are also found in the eggs. 



Finally, there are found in agar-cultures, as well as in 

 egg-cultures, also micrococcus-like bodies, at times free, at 

 times in dense masses. These are of varying size, in part 

 spherical, in part oval, in part rather irregular and angular ; they 

 stain deeply with gentian-violet and also by the method of 

 Gram. They correspond completely with the granules, in 

 which the differentiation of the stained filaments can often be 

 made out, and the rods also when stained exhibit similar granu- 

 lation. Wolff and Israel do not consider these coccus-like 



