i86 PRACTICAL BACTERIOLOGY. 



dilute aqueoas solatioa of methylene blue, or a very 

 dilute one of carbolic methylene blue. According 

 to the strength of the staining reagent, the staining 

 may take from ten minutes to several hours; as before, 

 the best preparations are often those for which weak 

 solutions have been used for a long time. 



If the cover-glass is now examined with the micro- 

 scope, amongst the pus corpuscles, some are seen which 

 contain the Micrococcus gonorrhoece, or gonococciis. 

 Sometimes there are a great many together, some- 

 times they are more isolated. Only exceptionally is 

 this organism found outside of the corpuscles, and 

 then only in consequence of the cells having been 

 crushed up one against the other during the prepara- 

 tion of the cover-glass, so that they have been 

 ruptured. The plasma becomes diffused, but the 

 nuclei remain intact, and around these the micrococci 

 are grouped, distinctly separated one from the other. 

 Such a cell has been selected for representation in 

 Fig. 2, Plate I., because in this condition the peculiar 

 biscuit-shaped form of the gonococcus is more easily 

 to be seen than when it lies enclosed in a cell. 

 Gonococci, as a rule, are grouped together in pairs, 

 but they do not touch each other, being distinctly 

 separated from each other. They are not quite 

 globular in form, but on the outer side are semi- 

 circular, and on the inner side somewhat flattened. 

 More rarely isolated micrococci are to be seen, but 



