[Read before the Philadelphia County Medical Society, Nov. 14, 1883.]
Lecturer on Experimental Pathology and Demonstrator of Morbid Anatomy in the University of Pennsylvania; Mütter Lecturer in the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.
(Continued from page 153, vol. ii.)
V.—THE BACILLUS TUBERCULOSIS—ITS NATURAL HISTORY, MORPHOLOGY, DETECTION, HABITAT, SIGNIFICANCE, AND DIAGNOSTIC VALUE.
I will now speak about the bacillus proper, and will allude here briefly to its natural history, morphology, habitat, significance, detection and diagnostic value.
The bacillus discovered by Koch, of Berlin, as is well known, is a vegetable organism, and belongs, according cording to Cohn's classification, to the group of filamentous bacteria (Desmo-bacteria), variety Bacillus.
The tubercle-bacilli form, according to Koch, a species of bacillus by themselves, and on Koch's authority as a mycologist we can accept this statement as correct until proved otherwise.
The tubercle-bacilli present themselves as thin, slender rods, in length varying from one-third to the