TETANUS. 57 
EXAMINATION oF Pus FROM SUSPECTED CASES OF 
TETANUS. 
Requisites—1. Slides and cover-glasses. 
2. A stiff platinum loop. 
3. Bunsen’s burner or spirit lamp. 
4. Léffler’s blue or carbol thionin. 
5. Materials for Gram’s staining. 
6. Balsam. 
If cultures are to be taken add a pipette (see p. 41), 
a deep tube of agar to which two per cent. of grape- 
sugar has been added previous to sterilisation, a flask of 
water, and a thermometer. 
Method.—Scrape the deeper portions of the wound 
with the platinum loop and spread out the secretion 
thus obtained on the surface of a slide. Prepare several 
of these slides, and fix the film by heat. Stain some by 
the simple stain for two minutes and others by Gram’s 
method. 
The bacillus of tetanus is about as long as the 
tubercle bacillus and is very slender. It stains by 
Gram’s method. A very characteristic feature is its 
method of spore-formation. The spores are spherical 
bodies which are formed at the extvemities of the bacilli, 
giving them the appearance of pins or drumsticks. The 
spores do not stain by the ordinary stains, and appear as 
colourless and highly refractile bodies (Plate II., fig. 2). 
The cultures are made in agar to which 2 per cent. of 
grape-sugar is added, and the needle or pipette used in 
making the inoculation is plunged deep down into the 
medium. The bacillus of tetanus is an anaérobe, 7.¢., it 
grows only in the absence of oxygen. The stabs are 
made deep in order to inoculate the material far away 
