PART III.] 



Spirilla in Blood of Fever- Patients in Bombay. 



597 



on several occasions. It could not, however, be said that the other subjective symptoms 

 in these cases were more grave than in other cases of the fever, in which not a trace of 

 the spirilla could be found. 



One of the preparations of blood, containing these organisms, which I was able to 

 preserve, is a particularly good one, and as it was obtained by exposing the fluid 

 immediately on its removal to the fumes of a weak solution of osmic acid, it may be 

 considered as representing the spirilla exactly as they appeared in a perfectly fresh slide. 

 The fumes of this acid, as has been stated by several observers, are particularly useful in 

 preserving the natural appearance of these microphytes, as, indeed, of blood-preparations 

 generally. Professor Ray Lankester, when recommending its use to English observers, 

 wrote : " It is sufficient to expose a thin film of blood on a glass cover to the vapour arising 

 from a bottle containing a 2 per cent, solution of osmic acid, during three minutes, to 



Fig. 53 ... . X 700 diam. 



Spirilla in the blood of fever-patients in Bombay : Traced from micro-photographs taken with Boss's ^^' immersion 

 objective. Some of the longer spirilla in the wood-cut are in the micro-photographs seen to consist of two 

 fibrils loosely attached at the ends. This peculiarity cannot be reproduced in the engraving. Several of 

 the blood corpuscles present a stellate appearance. 



ensure its complete preservation. Every corpuscle thus becomes ' set,' as it were, in its 

 living form ; there is no coagulation, no shrinking, no dissolution ; but as the corpuscle 

 was at the moment of exposure to the vapour, so it remains. The white corpuscles even 

 exhibit their pseudopodial processes arrested in the act of movement. It is as though 

 the osmic acid bottle contained a Grorgon's head, which freezes the corpuscles, as they face 

 it, into stone.* 



I have prepared several micro-photographs of this slide in the hope of being able 

 to supply facsimile copies of some of them with this paper. I fear, however, that it will 

 not be practicable to obtain reproductions of the negatives by any of the permanent 

 photographic processes practised in Europe in sufficient time to permit of their publication 

 at present. I have therefore caused tracings of some of the leading forms to be made and 

 have had them engraved on wood f (Fig 53). 



* Quarterly Journal of Microscopic Science, vol. xi, p. 370, 1871. 



t Two of these micro-photographs will be found reproduced in Plate XLIII. 



