274 Gonorrhea 



Morphology. The organisms occur in pairs, the inner 

 surfaces being flattened and separated from one another 

 by a narrow interval. A good lens usually shows the ap- 

 proximated surfaces of the diplococci to be slightly concave. 

 Sometimes, instead of diplococci, tetrads are seen, the 

 group no doubt resulting from the division of a pair. 

 A pair of the cocci resembles the German biscuit and is 

 known to the Germans as semmelformig. 



The gonococci are small, not motile, not provided with 

 flagella, and without spores. 



Staining. They stain readily with all the aqueous solu- 



Fig. 80. Gonococci in urethral pus. 



tions of the anilin dyes best with rather weak solutions, 

 but not by Gram's method. 



The organisms contained in pus can be beautifully shown 

 by first treating the prepared film with alcoholic eosin, and 

 then with Loftier 's alkaline methylene-blue. A differential 

 stain can be made by staining the film by Gram's method 

 and then with aqueous Bismarck brown. Ordinary pus 

 cocci, taking the Gram's stain, appear blue-black ; the gono- 

 cocci are dark brown. 



Isolation and Cultivation. The cultivation of the gono- 

 coccus is difficult and requires considerable bacteriologic 

 skill. 



The organism does not grow upon any of the ordinary 

 culture media, and grows very scantily upon any artificial 

 medium. Wertheim succeeded in cultivating it by diluting 

 a drop of gonorrheal pus with a little liquid human blood- 

 serum, mixing this with an equal part of melted 2 per cent. 



