BACILLI OF SWINE ERYSIPELAS. 805 



bacilli are found in largest numbers in the capillaries, 

 especially of the spleen and kidneys ; the walls of the 

 capillaries are for the most part thickly covered with 

 bacilli, while the lumen remains more or less free. The 

 most beautiful preparations are obtained by means of 

 Gram's method, or by double staining, in the first place 

 with gentian violet, which colours the bacilli violet, and 

 afterwards with picrocarmine, which gives the tissue a 

 rosy-red hue. 



These bacilli grow readily in alkaline meat juice, in Cultivations, 

 blood serum, and in the ordinary nutrient jelly between 

 18 and 40 C. ; their growth is extremely like that of 

 the bacilli of mouse septicaBmia. On plate cultivations 

 small round patches appear after two or three days, 

 which have a cloud-like character, and are of a bluish- 

 grey colour ; these patches gradually increase in size, 

 and under a low power of the microscope present the 

 appearance of finely branching bundles of threads, not 

 at all unlike the lacunas and canaliculi of bone. The 

 surface of the gelatine remains smooth, and the growth 

 of the colonies only occurs in the deeper layers. A 

 puncture cultivation in jelly shows, after three or four 

 days, bluish- grey cloudy bundles, projecting into the 

 gelatine on all sides at right angles to the line of 

 inoculation, so that the cultivation resembles a glass- 

 brush, such as is usually employed for cleaning test 

 tubes. This cloudy appearance remains more or less 

 limited to the neighbourhood of the line of inoculation, 

 and is not so delicate as in the cultivations of the 

 bacilli of mouse septicaemia. Growth does not occur 

 on the surface. In meat infusion these organisms 

 cause slight opacity of the fluid, and, at a later period, 

 u whitish-grey deposit at the bottom of the vessel, which 

 on very slight movement of the vessel rises in the form 

 of very fine clouds. There is never any scum formed at 

 the surface. 



In the cultivations the bacilli occur singly or united Mobility cf 

 together in threads of various lengths. According to * 

 Schottelius the shorter bacilli show distinct, although 

 not very active, spontaneous movement ; other observers 



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