AN ISOLATED CASE OF PLAGUE 381 
Pieces of the gland were embedded in paraffin and sections cut and stained with 
the various aniline dyes. The stain, from which the best results were obtained, was 
a weak solution of carbol-thionin blue, the 'pole staining' being specially well demon- 
strated by its use. 
In sections of the glands many small areas of necrotic softening were seen ; the 
vessels were dilated and engorged with blood, and there was extensive haemorrhagic 
infiltration into the gland substance and into the interstitial tissue surrounding the 
gland. 
Bacilli were found scattered amongst the cells, sparsely where the gland tissue 
was not much affected, abundantly in the necrotic areas. 
It is not improbable that the first smear preparations did not include the necrotic 
areas, and this would account for the small number of bacilli in those preparations. 
Cultures from the Glands 
Agar and serum tubes were smeared and incubated at 3 8° C. At the end of 
forty-eight hours, when the tubes were examined, the surface of the medium in each 
case was seen to be covered with small, circular, prominent, translucent colonies. 
P'ilms made from these colonies showed a number of large, irregular, vacuolated 
and badly stained bacilli, with a very few short oval bacilli, some ol which were more 
deeply stained at the poles than at the centre. 
Subcultures were made from individual colonies and pure cultures were obtained. 
Flasks of broth were then inoculated in the manner recommended by Dr. Balfour 
Stewart in these reports, and incubated at 3 8° C. 
Stalactite formation was observed on the third day. 
Inoculation Experiments 
Three hours after removal of the glands a guinea pig was inoculated with a small 
piece of one gland (about a square quarter-inch) beneath the skin of the abdominal 
wall. On the evening of the eighth day the guinea pig died ; the post-mortem was 
made on the following morning. 
Post-mortem. — At the site of the inoculation there was a large necrotic abscess. 
The spleen was enlarged and sown with small white nodules, the condition closely 
resembling that produced in general tuberculosis (no tubercle bacilli were found). 
No enlarged glands were seen in any part of the body. In the lungs there were 
numerous patches of consolidation ; the patches varied in size from that of a pin-head 
to a pea, those near the surface forming distinct elevations beneath the pleura. The 
centre of the consolidation was greyish-white, whilst around the nodule was a dark, 
livid, purplish zone, 
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