I I 2 BACTERIOLOGY. 



change should carefully be noted. From any pus or 

 exudation that may be present, material for inocu- 

 lations should at once be taken, and cover-glass- 

 preparations made for microscopical examination. 



To examine the internal organs and to make 

 inoculations from the blood of the heart or spleen, 

 the skin is cut through from below upwards in the 

 median line of the abdominal and thoracic regions. 

 The abdominal cavity is then opened, and the walls 

 pinned back on either side of the animal. Any 

 abnormal appearances should be noted, and espe- 

 cially the state of the spleen should be examined, 

 by turning the intestines aside. After noting its 

 appearances it should be removed with sterilised 

 forceps and scissors, and deposited upon a sterilised 

 glass slide. After washing it with sublimate solution 

 by means of a camel's hair brush or strip of filter 

 paper, it should be incised with sterilised scissors ; 

 the pulp may be squeezed out from the cut surface, 

 and test-tubes of nutrient gelatine and agar-agar 

 can be inoculated from it, and, if necessary, potato 

 and drop-cultivations also established. Precisely 

 the same care must be taken in examining lym- 

 phatic glands, tubercles, or pathological nodules ; 

 any chance putrefactive micro-organisms on ithe 

 surface are destroyed by the sublimate solution, 

 and a section is then made, and a minute fragment 

 snipped out of the centre of the nodule, to be 

 examined or transferred to the nutrient medium. 

 The examination of the thorax is made by cutting 



