Page:Tropical Diseases.djvu/720

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674
ULCERATING GRANULOMA
[CHAP.

through the protoplasm of the affected cells; more often they are arranged in little round clusters of eight or ten. Recently de Souza Araujo and others in Brazil have confirmed and extended Donovan's discovery. The Calymmatobacterium granulomatis, as they term the germ, is capsulated, non-motile, Gram-negative, non-spore-forming, does not liquefy gelatin nor coagulate milk. Under cultivation it is polymorphic, occurring as cocci, diplococci, bacilli, diplobacilli, and filaments, all forms possessing a

Fig. 93.—Parasitic elements in ulcerating granuloma of pudenda.

mucous capsule. It retains its virulence in experimental animals as far at least as the hundredth sub-culture on gelatin. In sections of the affected tissues the bacteria are seen to lie both inside and between the cells as capsulated cocci or diplococci, in chains or in zooglœa masses.

Age and sex.—Ulcerating granuloma has riot been observed before puberty; it has been found only after 13 or 14, and up to 40 or 50. It occurs in both sexes, but particularly in women.

Symptoms.—The disease commences in the great majority of cases somewhere on the genitals,