292 A C TINOMYCOSIS. 



structure lay. These colonies showed clubs, though clubs 

 were not present in the culture injected. The disease can 

 also be reproduced by direct inoculation from an animal 

 affected. 



Methods of Examination and Diagnosis. As actino- 

 mycosis cannot be diagnosed with certainty apart from the 

 discovery of the parasite, a careful examination of the 

 pus in obscure cases of suppuration should always be 

 undertaken. As already stated, the colonies can be recog- 

 nised with the naked eye, especially when some of the pus 

 is spread out on a piece of glass. If one of these is 

 washed in salt solution and examined unstained, the clubs, 

 if present, are at once seen on microscopic examination. 

 Or the colony may be stained with a simple reagent such 

 as picrocarmine, and mounted in glycerine or Farrant's 

 solution. To study the filaments, a colony should be 

 broken down on a cover glass, dried, and stained with a 

 simple solution of any of the basic aniline dyes, such as 

 gentian-violet, though better results are obtained by carbol- 

 thionin-blue, or by carbol-fuchsin diluted with five parts 

 of water. If the specimen be over-stained, it may be 

 decolorised by weak acetic acid. Cover-glass preparations 

 of this kind and also of cultures, are readily stained by 

 these methods, but in the case of sections of the tissues 

 Gram's method, or a modification of it, should be used to 

 show the filaments, etc., a watery solution of rubin being 

 afterwards used to staifi the clubs. By this method, very 

 striking preparations may be obtained. 



To obtain cultures, tubes of glycerine agar should be 

 inoculated with portions of the colonies and incubated at 

 37 C. Owing to the slow growth of the actinomyces, 

 however, the obtaining of pure cultures is difficult, unless 

 the pus is free from contamination with other organisms. 



MADURA DISEASE. 



Madura disease or mycetoma in many respects closely 

 resembles actinomycosis, and is produced by a somewhat 



