366 ?.IICRO-ORGANISMS AND DISEASE [chap. 



Neisser maintained that he had succeeded in cultivating 

 the lepra bacilli, but the evidence he adduced is not deemed 

 sufficient. Bordoni-Uffreduzzi {Zeitschi-ift f. Hygiene, Hi., 

 p. 178) maintains, however, positively that he has pro- 

 duced artificial cultures from the leprosy nodules of bone 

 marrow, on glycerine serum to which peptone and salt had 

 been added, kept at 35-37° C. The line of inoculation 

 became marked as a yellowish irregularly outlined band ; 

 the serum was not liquefied. On glycerine Agar, inoculated 

 with considerable quantity of leprous material, the same 

 kind of growth took place. In glycerine Agar plates the 

 colonies that grew on the surface and in the depth, seen 



Fig. 146. — Two Cells of the Leprosy (?) Nodules in the Liver of a 

 Bird (Rhea). 



The cell-substance is crowded with minute bacilli, similar to leprosy-bacilli. 

 Magnifying power 700. (Stained with magenta.) 



under a magnifying power of 100-200, were rounded reti- 

 culated patches, with dark thick centre. 



In a section through the liver of a bird {Rhea) that 

 died in the Zoological Gardens in London, prepared by 

 Dr. Gibbes after his method of staining for tubercle-bacilli, 

 there were seen innumerable aggregations of larger and 

 smaller pink masses (visible to the unaided eye as dots of 

 the size of a pin's point to that of a pin's head or millet- 

 seed, and larger). Under the microscope these pink masses 

 were seen to be composed of cells of various sizes, each 

 filled with an enormous number of what appeared under a 

 high power very short bacilli, much shorter than tubercle- 



