588 Microscopic Organisms in Blood and their Relation to Disease, [part hi. 



in the blood and tissues of animals after death in this country [India]. These microphytes 

 were not limited to minute spherical and elongated bacteria, but there were also present 

 well-marked staves and filaments. In the report submitted by us in 1872, and again 

 in 1874,* we drew attention to this matter and suggested the similarity between them 

 and Davaine's bacteridia. A figure of these organisms, which were published by us at 

 the time, is here reproduced (Fig. 50). 



A short time ago a circumstance occurred which drew my attention again in a 

 special manner to these organisms. Mr. Hart, a Veterinary Surgeon in Calcutta, 

 forwarded to me for examination a little perfectly fresh blood which he had removed 

 from a horse which had died that day of well-marked anthracoid disease. His curiosity 

 had been aroused as to the microscopical characters of the blood by perusing an account, 

 in the " Veterinary Journal," of " worms " having been found in the blood of horses 

 suffering from a similar affection in the Punjab. A slide was prepared and examined 

 under the microscope at once, but no marked peculiarity could be detected, but when 



Fig. 50.— Organisms found in the tissues of Iwalthy animals a few hours after death, x 1,500 diam. 



this and other slides were re-examined twelve hours later, having in the meanwhile 

 been kept under a bell-glass, numerous staves and filaments were observed, which, as 

 to size and form, accurately corresponded with the description of like bodies characterising 

 the blood in anthracoid diseases in Europe. 



Several " cultivations " were started by adding a little of the blood to fresh aqueous 

 humor. The preparations were then set aside for a few hours in a moist chamber. 

 As the temperature of the atmosphere at that time was generally over 90° F., no 

 special appliances were necessary for supplying artificial heat. The development of 

 the rods into filaments and subsequent appearance of highly refractive oval bodies in 

 the latter corresponded so completely with what Cohn, Koch, Ewart and others have 

 described, that it is not necessary to give figures of the changes that took place. A 

 series of such cultivations was conducted by transferring a little of the last cultivation 

 to fresh aqueous humor, and so on from one preparation to another. 



* Cholera : Microscopical and Physiological Researches, Ist and 2nd series, 1872 and 1874, reprinted at pp. 

 65 and 142 of this volume. 



