44 LEPROSY (BACILLUS LEPRAE) 



tendency, as a result of recent work, to regard these 

 bodies as bacillary thrombi. On examination with 

 a high power they are seen to consist of globular 

 masses of bacilli crossing one another in all directions 

 and lying embedded in a hyaline material which is 

 possibly the result of the degeneration of the 

 bacillus or its sheath. The bacilli tend to arrange 

 themselves concentrically with the circumference of 

 the mass, and to outline the vacuoles which occur in 

 the cells (Fig. 39). The bacilli in these cells are 

 usually very irregularly stained and much dotted, 

 and are so intermingled that it becomes difficult 

 to separate the individual microbes. This is the 

 case with the two large masses shown in the photo- 

 graph, but in the smaller and thinner group which 

 lies midway between them, as also at the periphery 

 of the larger masses, single greatly fragmented 

 bacilli can be made out. 



With a magnification of 1000 diameters a section 

 of a leprosy nodule presents the appearance shown 

 in Fig. 38, where the stiff, straight tubercle-like 

 bacilli are seen scattered in very large numbers- 

 throughout the tissues, and lying some within the 

 cells and some external to them. There are^ 

 numerous transition forms between the small 

 bacillus- containing cells of the granulation tissue 



