LEPROSY 131 



1. Treatment of the section of tissue or film, fixed upon a 

 cover-glass, with ivarm Ziehl-Neelsen carholfuchsine solution 



for twelve minutes. 



2. Decolourisation of the specimen in 25 per cent. H^SOi, 



3. Washing in 60 per cent, alcohol. 



4. Washing in distilled ivater. 



' Cover-glass specimens are at once examined in water or 

 after drying in xylol balsam. Sections are treated with 

 absolute alcohol, and removed to clove-oil before mounting 

 in balsam. A saturated solution of acetate of potash is the 

 best medium in which to mount specimens, as the colour 

 disappears less rapidly.' 



By this method the bacilli of leprosy are isolated and 

 distinguished as bright red rods (Baumgarten). They 

 may also be differentiated from those of tubercle by treat- 

 ment with potash solution (1 in 12). The bacilli then 

 appear as clear, rather thick rods. If a drop of watery 

 methyl-violet be now added, the leprosy bacilli alone are 

 stained. 



The grouping of the bacilli together in clumps and 

 masses is also a differentiating characteristic of the bacilli 

 in tissues, and does not resemble in any way the arrange- 

 inent of tubercular bacilli in giant-cells. 



The distribution of the leprosy bacillus within the body 

 is now known to be general in most of the tissues and 

 Yiscera, though it occurs more in the liver and spleen than 

 in the kidneys and brain. Kobner is the only pathologist 

 who claims to have found it in the blood. The bacilli are 

 found in cutaneous and other tubercles, and in the dis- 

 charges therefrom. 



Leprologists almost universally agree that the direct 

 implantation of leprous material upon solid nutrient media 

 gives negative results. Bordoni-Uffreduzzi claims, however, 

 to have cultivated the bacillus on peptone-glycerine-serum, 



