8 Description of Plague: [ APP. I.
2nd.-Small cocci and diplococci similar to those in the Health
Officer's cultivation of the same case, but more closely
agreeing in characters with those described as distinc-
tive of the plague bacillus, in that they were completely
bleached by treatment with solutions of iodine accord-
ing to the method of Gram.
3rd.-A schizomycete, which in all characters, macroscopical
and microscopical, was similar to that which was pre-
sent in a cultivation derived from the blood of the man
Cotta in Howrah, and supplied by the Health Officer as
a type-specimen of plague bacilli.
The evidence here is as complete as it well could be. The results in
the case of sample B show that the blood previous to exposure to air
contained no bacterial organisms, and those following even brief ex-
posure of portions of A and B to the chance of contamination equally
clearly demonstrate that various forms of schizomycetes, presenting all
distinctive characters of those alleged by the Health Officer to be
specific plague bacilli, are common arial contents, and therefore liable
to appear in any cultivations of blood not conducted under strictly
aseptic conditions.
The 7th February 1897.
No. 3.
M. Haffkine's instructions for diagnosing plague.
1. Symptoms of disease:
Fever preceded sometimes by rigor. Trembling in the limbs.
Pain, swelling, and hardening of one or rarely several superfi-
cial glands, most frequently of one in the groin, more
rarely in a gland or glands of the armpit or of the cervical
region.
Delirium. Sometimes restless efforts at vomiting which may
or may not be successful; constipation, or occasionally,
on the contrary, diarrha.
Comatose or semicomatose state of patient. Voice weak,
speech incoherent.
2. The most prominent of these symptoms is the affection of
superficial glands; cases, when this symptom is absent, if there are
any, appear quite exceptionally.
3. In a case of plague a microscopic preparation, made with the
contents of the affected gland, will show numerous diplobacteria of
characteristic shape and size, described for the first time by Kitasato
in Hong-kong.