50 
Bloofl Parasites 
In four or five young rats killed in a nest near the river, which were 
about seven days old, as the eyes were not opened, these bodies w'ere 
vei'v numerous. I am not quite certain whether these were the 3 mung 
of the ordinary rat or of the water vole, but judging from the shape of 
the head, I think they were the former. 
The blood showed a large number of polychromatic, bluish stained 
corpuscles, and also a large number of Graham-Smith’s bodies in the 
corpuscles and free in the plasma. The number of infected corpuscles 
varied, but generally there were three in every field of the 
objective. 
These bodies differed in number and in size. In some corpuscles 
they were so densely packed together that the whole cell stained a lilac 
colour, and the background of the red blood was quite obscured. In 
others, especially in .some of the large pale corpuscles, there were 
very few, probably not more than five or six in number. (Plate IV, 
fig. 50.) 
The intracorpuscular and the free bodies consisted of irregular rods, 
sometimes thicker at one end than another, club-shaped or beaded, 
and resembled very much Bacillus diphtheriae. They do not stain a 
pale blue colour like the basophile granulations so commonly seen in 
anaemic conditions of the blood, but a peculiar lilac colour. 
It seemed as if the infected corpuscle became enlarged, and much 
paler, and eventually disappeared leaving a group free in a cluster. 
Many of the free groups or clusters were about the size and shape of a 
corpuscle, and in a very few cases a faint outline of the original red cell 
could be detected. Others were scattered loosely in the field, and these 
as well as the intra-cellular forms stained in varying degrees of 
intensity, and not uncommonly one or two of the bodies appeared much 
larger, irregularly round or oval in shape, and stained a deeper colour 
than the others. Some of the groups no longer consisted of rods, but 
had degenerated into mere granules. 
Many of the Graham-Smith bodies measure 1 to 1'5 p long and 
0'2 to 0'3 p in width. 
Peculiar Bodies in the Blood of the Mole. 
In the blood of one or two moles I found bodies which are not 
normal elements of the blood and yet which I could not classify. 
These occur only in small numbers, not more than six or nine could be 
found in a film. (Plate II, fig. 23.) 
