120 



Scientific Proceedings (58). 



liberated from the damaged liver cells. Such progressive throm- 

 bosis assists in producing a more widespread necrosis of the partly 

 damaged liver tissue, even involving several neighboring lobules. 



75 (892) 



The effect of gentian violet on protozoa and on growing adult 



tissue. 



By John W. Churchman, M.D., and D. G. Russell. 



[From the Laboratory of Surgery, Yale University.] 



This study was primarily undertaken to settle two questions 

 raised by the observations made during the last two years on the 

 effect of gentian violet on bacteria. 1 It was noticed early in the 

 gentian violet studies that motile organisms not killed by the 

 stain (violet negative organisms) retained their motility even 

 though deeply stained; and that these stained violet negative 

 organisms when transplanted to agar slants grew equally well with 

 the control smears of unstained bacteria. The retention of mo- 

 tility by the stained organisms might in these experiments be 

 explained as a survival phenomenon; and the growth of trans- 

 plants made from the stained specimens might be regarded as 

 arising, not from the organisms in the smear which had taken the 

 stain, but from the few in the smear which had escaped it. It 

 seemed altogether likely, from other observations that these explan- 

 ations were not the correct ones; and that the violet negative 

 organisms actually took the stain during life. Still, definite proof 

 was lacking that gentian violet in these experiments was acting 

 as a true intra-vital stain. To furnish this proof and to investigate 

 the further problem (raised but not solved by the experiments with 

 bacteria) as to whether the vital dye stained the nucleus or the 

 protoplasm, two series of experiments have been done; one with a 

 protozoon (paramecium) and another with living tissues. 



Effect of Gentian Violet on Protozoa. 

 The paramecium used for this purpose came from a pedigreed 

 race kindly furnished by Professor Woodruff. The effect of the 



1 Churchman, Journ. Exp. Med., Vol. XVI, No. 2, 1912; Vol. XVI, No. 6, 1912; 

 Vol. XVII, No. 4. I9I3- 



