Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 May 2009
1. Rabbits were infected with virulent bovine tubercle bacilli in three ways: by (1) intravenous, (2) intrasplenal and (3) intrapulmonary injection. In series (1) and (2) part of the spleen, and in series (3) part of the draining lymph glands were sectioned for histological examination, and usually explants for tissue culture were made from the rest of the organ.
2. A histological study of the infected spleens and lymph glands fixed after different periods of infection showed the usual picture of progressive tuberculous infection; acid-fast bacilli were rare and often difficult to find.
3. After a few days' cultivation in vitro, explants of the infected spleens often became densely infiltrated with bacilli.
4. Previous investigators have expressed the view that acid-fast bacilli are so few in tuberculous lesions in vivo, because large numbers become unstainable. If this is true, and if the unstained bacilli remain viable, it would readily account for the extraordinarily rapid bacillary infiltration of tissue cultures of infected organs. Alternatively, it must be assumed that the few scattered acid-fast rods in the original tissue grow at a prodigious rate under the conditions of life in vitro.
5. These alternatives and other theoretical implications of the results are discussed.