METHOD FOR DEMONSTRATION OF SPIROCHAETA PALLIDA IN SINGLE MICROSCOPIC SECTIONS

Abstract

In the study of the pathology of infectious diseases, no known organism has offered more resistance to the possibilities of constant demonstration thanSpirochaeta pallida. In the laboratory of general pathology, the histologic diagnosis of syphilitic lesions could not always be supplemented with the staining of the organism. Furthermore, in lesions regarded as "suspicious of syphilis" a positive differential diagnosis could not be made on the basis of a negative result with the staining methods that have appeared from time to time. Even with the old Levaditi method for total blocks, the clinical and anatomicohistologic diagnosis of syphilis was often more significant than the absence of spirochetes by doubtful staining methods. Manouélian's modification of the Levaditi procedure made the technic more reliable, but such methods utilized the total blocks, often leaving no tissue available for ordinary histologic stains in cases of biopsy. When Noguchi showed that spirochetes were present in