928 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



in Norway. In all tlie fourteen preparations brought home, obtained 

 from the liver, spleen, testicles, lymph-glands, and other parts, with 

 a -jio Zeiss's oil-immersion objective, he found abundance of bacilli. 



The bacilli had the form of small slender rods, with a length 

 about half the diameter of a red human blood-corpuscle, and about 

 four times as long as broad. They approach most nearly the bacilli 

 connected with the septictemia of the mouse, but are not so fine. They 

 are invisible in uncoloured sections, but beautifully seen when tinc- 

 tured with fuchsin and gentian -violet. Their relative position and 

 distribution vary greatly according to the part where they are found. 

 They lie either two or three behind one another, apparently forming 

 a long sometimes curved thread ; or six or seven lie parallel to one 

 another ; or large numbers are associated in all directions into a 

 confused mass, which is only with difficulty resolved into its elements. 

 At a later stage of the leprosy, the rods break up into granules ; but 

 whether these are the result of disintegration, or must be regarded as 

 spores, is doubtful. The bacilli were found in greatest quantities in 

 the skin ; next to that in the testicles ; also in the spleen and liver ; 

 they were found in the marginal parts of the lymph-canals ; the 

 kidneys were free from them. 



These bacilli are regarded by Neisser as the primary cause or 

 contagium of leprosy. He was led to this conclusion by their constant 

 occurrence, their imiform form and structure ; and by the fact that, 

 with the exception of the micrococci always present in the epidermis, 

 they were the only bacterial form observed, and were found only 

 where a pathological process was already developed or was commencing. 



Vegetable Ferments and the Action of certain Poisons on 

 Vegetable Cells,* — In sequel to his observations on metastasis,t 

 W. Detmer distinguishes the following four varieties in the action of 

 various compounds on vegetable cells on the one hand, and on ferments 

 on the other hand : — 



1. Neither are the cells killed nor does the action of the ferment 

 cease. To this case belongs the observation that young seedling peas 

 grown in the dark continue to grow steadily, in contact with a 1 per 

 cent, solution of grape-sugar, and that the presence of the latter does 

 not interfere with the starch-transforming power of diastase in the 

 mixture of starch-j)aste and malt-extract. 



2. Not only are the cells killed, but the activity of the ferment is 

 destroyed. Salicylic acid and atropin, both in a 2 per cent, solution, 

 are very powerful poisons ; also cupric sulphate in solutions of any 

 concentration. These substances also destroy the activity of diastase, 



3. The cells are killed, but the activity of the ferment is not 

 destroyed. This is the eifect of not too dilute sohitions of sodium 

 chloride, of 1 per cent, solution of carbolic acid, and of fluids which 

 contain a very small quantity of an ethereal oil. 



4. The cells are not killed, but the activity of the ferment is 

 destroyed. Some peas which had been made to swell in a 4 per cent. 



* SB. Jenaisch. Ges. f. Med, u. Naturw., Jan. 28, 1881. See Bot. Cen- 

 tralbl., vi. (1881) p. 186. 



t See this Journal, ante, p. 770. 



