212 ORGANISMS. RESEMBLING BACILLUS TUBERCULOSIS. 



limited to certain countries, it is in reality comparatively 

 widespread in all parts of the globe. It is exceedingly com- 

 mon in Egypt, Syria, China, Siam, Norway, Sweden, the 

 Sandwich Islands, Turkey, and parts of Italy and the United 

 States, and India. The leper colony in the Sandwich Islands 

 contains 11,000 patients. Isolated cases have been reported 

 in many States of this country, especially in Louisiana, where 

 there is now established a small leper colony. Lepers should 

 be promptly isolated. 



Bacillus of Syphilis. 



In 1884 Lustgarten discovered a bacillus in the lesions of 

 syphilis which he believed to be the specific cause of the 

 disease. It has not yet been accepted as the cause of syphilis, 

 and for that reason it is said that the exciting cause of syphilis 

 is unknown. Lustgarten's bacillus resembles the tubercle 

 and smegma bacilli. Many other organisms have been de- 

 scribed as causative, but Lustgarten's is the only one which 

 is deserving of consideration. He did not succeed in isolat- 

 ing the germ and cultivating it, nor did inoculation experi- 

 ments with the syphilitic virus produce the disease. He 

 based his claim almost entirely on the constancy of the 

 bacillus in the lesions and discharges of syphilis. It stains 

 in a very peculiar manner, but the method is also applicable 

 to the tubercle and lepra bacilli. 



Lustgarten's bacillus is from 3 JUL to 5 p long, and from 0.2 /JL 

 to 0.3 fj. broad, slightly curved, often pointed at one end, and 

 presenting unstained spaces in the stained specimen, which he 

 believed to be spores. The bacilli usually occur singly or in 

 groups within the large cells (Fig. 88). He found the organ- 

 ism in .all the lesions of syphilis, both internal and external. 



Preparations are made from the tissues and the discharges. 

 The film is fixed by passing it through the flame only once, 

 and is then kept at the room temperature for twenty-four 

 hours. It is stained with warmed anilin-water gentian- 

 violet, decolorized in absolute alcohol, and exposed to the 

 action of a 1.5 per cent, aqueous solution of potassium per- 

 manganate for ten seconds. A second decolorization is effected 



