XII] PATHOGENIC BACILLI : GROUP C 267 



a moderately high power they are seen to resemble strepto- 

 cocci, but with an oil-immersion lens there is no difficulty 

 in recognising the elements constituting the threads or 

 clumps as really being bacilli, the protoplasm being either 

 rod-shaped and stained uniformly, or else being segregated 

 as a granule at each end and then receiving the stain at the 

 two poles. 



The description which we have here given of the character 

 of the growth in the different media and of their microscopic 

 aspect coincides in every essential with that given by Pfeiffer 

 and Kitasato in their paper already quoted, except that in 

 that paper sufficient prominence is not given to the thread- 

 like nature of the growth ; this, however, may be entirely 

 owing to their communication having the character of a 

 preliminary short account of their results. 



The result of the examination of the blood of influenza 

 cases was this : — 



Of forty-three cases of blood examination, no bacterial 

 forms could be discovered in thirty-seven. In the other 

 six cases cover-glass specimens revealed the presence of 

 one and the same kind of minute bacillus ; in one the 

 bacilli were numerous, in two they were fairly numerous, 

 and in the other three they were very sparse. 



In the thirty-seven cases the temperature in the majority 

 was higher than normal, in a minority it was normal or sub- 

 normal. In some cases blood was taken at two different 

 periods : during and after the fever ; or both times during 

 the period of raised temperature ; or when the tempera- 

 ture had again fallen. But in these respects no definite 

 relation as to the presence or absence of the bacilli could 

 be made out. 



It is then clear from these observations that neither 

 during the febrile stage nor after the temperature has again 



