LEPROSY. 249 



which were held together by gelatinous material ; and that 

 even where there were apparently globular masses in the 

 lymphatic channels, they were nothing but these zooglcea 

 masses, whilst a great number of the organisms were lying 

 entirely free, the nuclei of the so-called lepra cells again being 

 the nuclei of the walls of the lymphatics or of the lymph 

 cells that had become embedded in the gelatinous mass. 

 Many competent observers, however, maintain that the lepra 

 cells have a real existence, and there can be little doubt that 

 bacilli may be found in large cells squeezed from a leprosy 

 nodule. 



One of the most marked distinctions between tuber- 

 culous and- leprous tissue is, that in tubercle the bacilli 

 are comparatively few in number, especially when they 

 are met with in the more chronic cases — the only cases 

 that could, possibly be mistaken for leprosy ; whilst in 

 leprosy the bacilli are almost invariably present in enor- 

 mous numbers in the lymph channels of the tissues in 

 which they are growing, on which they seem to exert com- 

 paratively little destructive influence, as they remain for a 

 considerable length of time in an almost quiescent condition, 

 setting up little change, but undergoing no retrogressive 

 changes themselves. Cornil and Babes record that in a 

 small fragment of a leprous nodule that had been left in 

 an envelope, forgotten for nearly ten years, they were still 

 able to stain the bacilli very distinctly ; and sections that 

 had been stained in picro carmine and kept mounted in 

 glycerine for a number of years, it was found, might 

 stiir be stained so as to bring the bacilli into prominence. 

 Then, too, leprosy affects the skin and nerves specially, 

 rarely the lungs and serous membranes. Tuberculosis, on the 

 contrary, affects the latter very frequently, and very rarely 

 the former. From the enormous number of bacilli that are 

 found in the lymph spaces, it can be readily understood that 

 when ulceration of a nodule takes place, these organisms 

 are to be found in large numbers in the blood and serum 

 that is discharged from the ulcerated surfaces. Although 

 this is the case it is a somewhat peculiar fact that this- 

 organism is seldom found in the superficial layers of the 

 epithelium covering the nodule, although in the ducts of 

 sebaceous glands, and around the hairs of the skin, as Babes 

 demonstrated, the bacilli may be present in considerable 



