SEBORRHOEA OLEOSA 



693 



Methods of examination. Remove one of the crusts, scrape it with the edge of 

 a slide and prepare films with the oily material scraped off. 



Wash the films in ether to get rid of the fatty substances, stain by Gram's method, 

 or, more simply, with blue, fuchsin, or carbol-violet. The preparations show 

 numerous very fine bacilli in pure culture (fig. 329). 



In young cultures the bacillus is punctiform and 

 very like a coccus : in older cultures the organism 

 is more obviously a bacillus and measures about 

 1 x O'S/* : the organism stains readily with the basic 

 aniline dyes, or the ordinary solutions containing a 

 mordant can be used. It stains by Gram's method. 



Cultures. It is difficult to raise a culture of the 

 organism with material from seborrhcea of the scalp 

 or from a comedo. The bacillus, like all skin 

 bacteria, requires an acid medium : on the follow- 

 ing medium its cultivation is " almost easy." 



Peptone, - - 20 grams. 



Glycerin, - 20 



Glacial acetic acid, - 5 drops. 



Water, - 1000 grams. 



Agar, 13 



The agar is distributed into tubes and sloped. 



To sow cultures from the tissues, wash the affected area of the akin with ether, 

 then scrape it vigorously with the sharp edge of a sterile slide and sow the sebum 

 on the surface of the medium. A large quantity of the material should be sown 

 on each tube. On a few of the tubes, among a number of casual denizens, one or 

 two pure colonies of the bacillus will be obtained. 



At 35 C. the colonies become visible about the fourth day and, provided the 

 medium contain glycerin, assume a rather characteristic appearance, being brick- 

 red in colour and in shape like a pointed cone. 



In the original cultures, colonies of Sabouraud's bacillus are always accompanied 

 by other species of micro-organisms, a white coccus, Staphylococcus cutis communis, 

 Bacillus asciformis (Flaschen bacillen of Unna), etc. To obtain a pure culture of the 

 seborrhcea bacillus, Sabouraud advises leaving the sebum for 2 months between 

 two sterile slides or heating it for 10 hours to 65-67 C. before sowing cultures. 

 By this means the organisms accompanying it are killed but the bacillus itself is 

 not destroyed. 



Experimental inoculation. Attempts to reproduce the disease in animals invariably 

 fail. 



FIG. 329. Bacillus of seborrhcea 

 oleosa. Seborrhceic exudate. Carbol- 

 thionin. (Oc. II, obj. ^th, Reich.) 



