PATHOGENIC ANAEROBIC BACILLI. 581 
This bacillus is widely distributed, being found in the superficial 
layers of the soil, in dust, in putrefying substances, in the blood of 
animals which have been suffocated (by invasion from the intestine), 
in foul water, etc. 
It may usually be obtained by introducing beneath the skin of a 
rabbit or a guinea-pig a small quantity of garden earth. The animal 
dies within a day or two, and this bacillus is found in the bloody 
serum effused in the subcutaneous connective tissue for a consider- 
able distance about the point of inoculation. 
Morphology.—Bacilli from 3 to 3.5 # long and 1 to 1.1 « broad; 
Fie. 162.—Bacillus cedematis maligni, from subcutaneous connective tissue of inoculated 
guinea-pig. x 950. (Baumgarten.) 
frequently united in pairs, or chains of three elements ; may grow 
out into long filaments 15 to 40 « long—these are straight, or bent 
at an angle, or more or less curved. They resemble the bacillus of 
anthrax, but are not quite as broad, have 
rounded ends, and in stained preparations 
\ = on the long filaments are not segmented as is 
X ( the case with the anthrax bacillus. By 
00 § Léffler’s method of staining they are seen to 
KS have flagella arranged around the periphery 
of the cells. Large, oval spores may be de- 
my veloped in the bacilli (not in the long fila- 
fia. tie eas elem ments), which are of greater diameter than 
tis maligni, from an agarcul. the rods, and produce a terminal or central 
ture, showing spores. 1,000 gwelling of the same, according to the loca- 
From a _ photomicrograph, 
(Frinkel and Pfeiffer.) tion of the spore. 
Stains readily by the aniline colors usu- 
ally employed, but is decolorized when treated by Gram’s method. 
C= 
o 
4 
