154 Prof. E. Goldmann. On a Neiv Method of [Feb. 22, 



seat of trouble is the lung, whither the bacilli are carried by the blood stream 

 after penetrating the portal vein and causing extensive tubercular thrombi 

 throughout its larger branches. The liver and spleen contain merely 

 microscopic lesions of inferior gravity, when compared with the large areas of 

 tubercular necrosis in the lung. The pyrrhol cells of the peritoneum take no 

 active part in this acute form of experimental tuberculosis. 



An entirely different result follows the intraperitoneal injection of the 

 avian bacillus. On macroscopic examination of the vitally stained animal, 

 several weeks after inoculation of the virus, the peritoneum and intraperitoneal 

 organs hardly show any trace of disease. All the more remarkable are the 

 lesions revealed by the microscope. The omentum is full of blue patches, 

 which to the naked eye wear the appearance of tdches laiteuses. By means 

 of the specific stain for bacilli I was able to prove that these blue patches 

 consisted entirely of pyrrhol cells, whose blue protoplasm was choked with 

 myriads of bacilli. No trace of inflammation could be found in their 

 immediate or more distant surroundings. Such aggregations of pyrrhol cells 

 laden with bacilli were also discovered in the liver, spleen, mesenteric glands, 

 and, in a smaller number, in the lung. In all these organs the tubercles had 

 the vital stain and were thus easily distinguished by a low magnifying power. 

 They lay in lymphatic spaces, in the liver surrounding the portal vessels, in 

 the spleen arranged round the malpighian bodies. The blood-vessels were, 

 with few exceptions in the liver, intact. No caseation occurred nor could 

 small cell infiltration or giant cells be anywhere found in connection with 

 these vitally stained tubercles of peritoneal origin. 



A key to the whole process was afforded by the examination of animals at 

 short intervals after the injection of the avian bacilli. The latter are quickly 

 conveyed to the liver, where they are destroyed in great numbers by the 

 Kupffer cells. Such as remain in the peritoneal cavity are phagocyted by the 

 vitally stained pyrrhol cell. They multiply in those cells, which wander into 

 the omentum, liver, spleen, and mesenteric glands, and eventually into the 

 lung. As the bacilli increase, a most characteristic morphological change 

 occurs in the cell. The granules of the protoplasm gradually disintegrate, 

 the vital stain, which had originally been confined to the granule, now effects 

 a diffuse stain of the whole cell. Eventually it can disappear entirely. 



As this metamorphosis of the cell protoplasm proceeds, its biochemical 

 reaction alters, inasmuch as in the place of a specific attraction for the vital 

 stain, the protoplasm now shows an increased affinity for the fat stains. Eat 

 first appears in the shape of tiny droplets. In the final stage, these droplets 

 increase in size and eventually usurp the place of the cell body. And yet 

 the cell continues to live, for even in this stage of excessive fat infiltration 



