Post-graduate course at Queen's College, Birmingham : two lectures on the general pathology of tubercle, with especial reference to the question of infection / by Gilbert Barling.

  • Barling, Harry Gilbert, 1855-1940.
Date:
[1891]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Post-graduate course at Queen's College, Birmingham : two lectures on the general pathology of tubercle, with especial reference to the question of infection / by Gilbert Barling. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    cell or leucocyte and transported into the tissues by the migra- tions of its host. The number of bacilli found in any tubercular tissue may vary greatly, the variations depending upon whether the tuber- cular lesion is acute or chronic and slowly advancing. The age and amount of degeneration in the tubercular matter also influences the number of bacilli seen. In a section of lung from a case of acute tuberculosis the number of bacilli in a field may be counted by thousands; in a section from a tubercular tumour of the brain half a dozen may be found in a field; and in lupus it may be necessary to examine half a dozen sections or more before finding a single bacillus. The bacilli are found most readily where the tubercular process is spreading, and should be looked for especially in the interior of the giant cells or epithelioid cells, though they are often found between rather than within them ; and this is especially so in the more acute manifestations. If the portion under examination should be caseous, no bacilli may be found; yet this material, when inoculated into animals, gives rise to tuberculosis, the explanation being that the caseous matter contains the spores of bacilli which have broken up; the spores though not staining, yet have the power of giving birth to fresh bacilli. Koch's original papers shewed that whether the part examined was a tuberculous lung, gland, bone or joint, or a tubercular ulcer of the tongue or bladder, or lupus, the bacillus was found— and this has been confirmed over and over again by others— whilst sections' from other and non-tuberculous diseases failed to shew tubercle bacilli. (Numerous photographs of bacilli were here shewn.) The only micro-organism closely resembling the tubercle bacillus is that found in leprosy, which is similar in appearance, and is capable of being stained in a like manner; but it is differentiated from the former by cultivation, and practically it is of little importance to us owing to the rarity of leprosy in this country.