HYDROPHOBIA. 3IS 



and Roux all made most careful search for organisms in the 

 various tissues of animals affected by hydrophobia, and, 

 although they at first imagined that they had been successful, 

 they ultimately came to the conclusion that the small round 

 micrococcus-like bodies that they found were not associated 

 with the disease or had only an indirect relation to it. In 

 1884 Gibier was able to demonstrate in the medulla of 

 animals suffering from hydrophobia small rounded refractile 

 bodies, which looked like micrococci aggregated into small 

 masses. He demonstrated their presence by mashing down 

 the medulla in sterilized distilled water, and then adding 

 two or three times the quantity of water, and examining 

 some of the opaque fluid thus obtained, under the microscope. 

 Those organisms which remained in fragments of the cere- 

 bral substance were perfectly motionless, whilst those that 

 were free in the fluid exhibited a certain motility. No such 

 bodies could be obtained, by a similar method of treatment, 

 from healthy brains. Although these bodies resembled 

 micro-organisms in many respects, they could be only faintly 

 tinged with the aniline colours, and it was never found 

 possible to make cultivations into any nutrient media with 

 which experiments were made. In 1885 Fol brought before 

 the French Academy of Sciences some observations made on 

 sections of the cord taken from rabid animals prepared by 

 Weigert's haematoxyline method.' 



He found in specimens so prepared, small granules re- 

 sembling micrococci, not only in the lymph spaces of the 

 neuroglia but even between the axis cylinder and its medul- 

 lary sheath, the cavities in some cases being of very consi- 

 derable size, and containing these small granules in large 

 masses. Each granule is perfectly distinct and takes on a 

 deep violet stain, they are about .2/* in diameter, are some- 

 times arranged as diplococci, but seldom or never in chains 

 of any considerable length. Fol believed that he was 

 able to cultivate these organisms, but only directly from 

 the cord itself, and he describes a slight cloudiness of the 

 medium (broth) as making its appearance after the intro- 



' Weigert's method. Cords hardened in bichromate of potash and then 

 transferred to sulphate or acetate of copper solution. Sections coloured with 

 solution of I part haematoxyline crystals, 90 of water, and 10 parts of 

 alcohol, then decolorized by a solution of 2.5 of ferrocyanide of potassium, 

 2 parts of borax, and too parts of water. 



