102 
ARMANER HANSEN. 
obtained from it, by colouring the sections with methyl 
violet, a few preparations in which the brown cells, easily 
visible, also without colouring, appeared very sharply dis- 
tinguished from the surroundings by their violet colour ; 
upon closer inspection they show a finely granulated and 
partly striated appearance, as if they consisted of small rods. 
As a reason for my small success in this work I must (after a 
letter from Dr. Koch, with whom I communicated respecting 
it) presume that the reason is either that the methyl violet 
1 use is not as it ought to be, or that I have allowed the 
colouring matter to act too short a time. These mistakes. 
Dr. Koch informs me, were from the first committed also by 
Dr. Neisser. Dr. Neisser’s later and more successful results 
probably arise from his having been so fortunate as to have 
Dr. Koch’s valuable guidance. I have, by this preparation, 
obtained conformation of my earlier supposition that the 
large brown bodies after all are nothing else than either 
masses of zoogloea or collections of bacilli which are enclosed 
in cells. By looking at fig. 4, which represent tumour- 
cells treated with osmic acid, drawn from preparations made 
in 1873, one is easily able to form an idea how these same 
cells, by a constantly increasing number of small rods, at 
last become quite overloaded, and thus obtain the appearane 
of being filled with fine granules', since the single rods 
cannot then be distinguished. I have already in my first 
communication to “Leprosy’s Characteristics” (‘North. 
Med. Archiv,’ vol. i. No. 13) stated that I was inclined to 
regard those brown elements as peculiar to leprous growth, 
both on account of their most striking appearance, and 
because they were always to be met with in all the parts 
affected with leprosy. Should the above-mentioned supposi- 
tion concerning the true nature of the brown elements prove 
in time to be correct, their peculiarities will, at the same 
time, be demonstrated, and it will be important to ascertain 
the conditions of existence of these bacilli, in order, finally, 
with full reliability to remove all doubt as to the real cause 
of leprosy ; and this, shall as before, be the goal of my work. 
Since writing the above I have also been so fortunate as to 
obtain bacilli finely coloured in a section of a tubercle hardened 
in absolute alcohol, and, acting upon Dr. Koch’s advice, 
stained with a stronger staining fluid. Baccilli are found in 
all parts of the section, either singly, or more frequently 
in groups, fully corresponding to those occurring in the cells. 
I furnish a drawing of two groups taken with Zeiss’s 
immersion system ^^^d eye- piece No. 4. 
