BACILLI IN CHRONIC INFECTIOUS DISEASES, 487 
bent or curved. The rods have pointed ends; and in stained pre- 
parations unstained spaces, similar to those observed in the tubercle 
bacillus and generally assumed to be spores, are to be seen, although 
not quite so distinctly as in the latter. The bacilliare said by Fliigge 
to be from four to six “in length and less than one “in width— 
probably considerably less, for the same author states that the tubercle 
bacillus has about the diameter of the bacillus of mouse septiceemia, 
and this is given as 0.2 ». 
This bacillus stains readily with the aniline colors and also 
by Gram’s method. Although it differs from the tubercle bacillus 
in the ease with which it takes up the ordinary aniline colors, it re- 
sembles it in retaining its color when subsequently treated with 
strong solutions of the mineral acids. Double-stained prepara- 
tions are therefore easily made by first staining sections or cover- 
glass preparations in Ziehl’s carbol-fuchsin solution or in an aqueous 
solution of methyl violet, decolorizing in acid, washing in alcohol, 
and counter-staining with methylene blue—or, if methyl violet was 
used in the first instance, with vesuvin. 
Biological Characters.—The earlier attempts to cultivate this 
bacillus were without success, but recently Bordoni-Uffreduzzi has 
obtained from the marrow of the bones of a leper a bacillus which 
he believes to be the leprosy bacillus, and which he was able to culti- 
vate upon blood serum to which a certain amount of peptone and of 
glycerin had been added. At first this bacillus only grew with diffi- 
culty and in the incubating oven ; but after it had been cultivated 
artificially through a number of generations it is said to have grown 
upon ordinary nutrient gelatin at the room temperature. The bacillus 
obtained in this way is said to have retained its color when treated 
with acids, after having been stained with aniline-fuchsin, correspond- 
ing in this respect with the bacillus of leprosy and the tubercle ba- 
cillus. But it differed considerably in its morphology from the Ba- 
cillus lepree as seen in the tissues of lepers, being considerably thicker, 
and it was not so promptly stained by the aniline colors as is the 
bacillus found in the tissues. Moreover, attempts to cultivate thc 
same bacillus from leprous tubercles of the skin were unsuccessful, 
as were also inoculation experiments into the anterior chamber of the 
eye inrabbits. It is therefore a matter of doubt as to whether the 
bacillus obtained by Bordoni-Uffreduzzi is identical with that present 
in such numbers in the cells of the leprous tubercles, to which the 
name Bacillus lepre has been given. 
Some of the earlier observers described the bacillus of leprosy as 
motile, but this assertion seems to have been based upon some error 
of observation, and it is now generally agreed that, like the tubercle 
bacillus, it is without proper movements. The question of spore for- 
