510 APPLICATION OF METHODS OF BACTERIOLOGY 



characteristic of the affection, are in the bile and in the 

 liver; in some cases the quantity of bile may not exceed 

 the normal, but in others the gall-bladder may be abnor- 

 mally distended with bile. The bile is nearly colorless or 

 has a pale yellowish or brownish tint, with little or no 

 greenish color. Its consistence is much less viscid than 

 normal, being often thin and watery. It usually contains 

 small, opaque, yellowish particles or clumps which can be 

 seen floating in it, even through the walls of the gall-bladder. 

 These clumps consist microscopically of bile-stained, appar- 

 ently necrotic, epithelial cells; leukocytes in small numbers; 

 amorphous masses of bile-pigment, and bacteria often in 

 zooglea-like clumps. Similar material is found in the larger 

 bile-ducts. 



The liver frequently contains opaque, whitish or yellow- 

 ish-white spots and streaks of irregular size and shape, which 

 give a peculiar mottling to the organ when present in large 

 number. These areas may be numerous, or only one or two 

 may be found. In size they range from minute points to 

 areas of from 2 to 3 cm. in extent. By microscopic exami- 

 nation they are found to represent localities where the liver- 

 cells have undergone necrosis accompanied by emigration 

 of leukocytes, and the cells about them are in a condition 

 of fatty degeneration. In sections of the liver masses of 

 the bacilli may be discovered in and about the necrotic 

 foci just described. 



At these autopsies the colon bacillus is not found generally 

 distributed through the body, but is only to be detected in 

 the bile, liver, and occasionally in the spleen. 1 



1 Consult paper by Blachstein on this subject, Johns Hopkins Hospital 

 Bulletin, 1891, ii, 96. 



