210 MICROBES, FEEMENTS, AND MOULDS, 



plicated. The blood of the eruption, the catan-hal 

 secretion of the nose, etc., contain small round 

 bodies, isolated or in pairs (in the form of the figure 

 8), or more rarely in short chaplets. When there is 

 decided pneumonia, the pulmonary alveoli likewise 

 contain isolated bacteria, in the form of an 8, in 

 chaplets, and even in zoogloea, or massed together. 

 Babes has not yet cultivated nor tried to inoculate 

 this microbe. 



More recently, in January, 1883, Le Bel observed, 

 in the urine of persons attacked by measles, the 

 appearance of sHghtly curved rods {bacillus) capable 

 of very slow movements. Their length varies con- 

 siderably, and the spores appear in a swelling which 

 occurs at about a third of the length of each rod. 

 This microbe appears for a few days at the beginning 

 of the fever, and disappears with the fever, to return 

 afresh at the moment when peeling begins. We know 

 that these are the two epochs of contagion. The 

 microbe is found in this scurf, and may be obtained 

 by scraping the skiu with a knife. Le Bel succeeded 

 in cultivating it in sterilized urine. In serious cases 

 of measles, the microbe remains upon the skin and in 

 the urine for weeks, and even months. It is probable 

 that Babes's micrococcus and Le Bel's bacillus are only 

 two forms of the same microbe. 



Scarlatina. — Pohl has found, in the desquamating 

 epidermic cells of this disease, and on the soft palate, 

 micrococci of somewhat smaller size than those of 



