Studies on morphological characteristics of Leptospira icterohaemorrhagiae by electron microscope Part 1. Studies of elemental structures

By means of the electron microscope, the futher studied the morphological characteristics of Leptospira icterohaemorrhagiae that was grown in the Korthof media. And the following findings were observed. 1) There was a thin slime layer on the surface of the organism. This layer might be supposed to correspond to the slime layer of bacterium, was frequently found on the organism of young Culture, and was fallen off easily by careless handling furing preparation. 2) The body of the organism was covered by a membrane. The membrane could observe easily and clearly on slices made by ultramicrotome. Otherwise, it could hardly identify the membrane by occurence of desiccation artifact. 3) The organism had a well definded axis filament along its slender body in the following way. In the middle part of the body, the filament was mounted in cytoplasm; Near the both ends, it was appearenced over the surface membrane of cytoplasm. and finally at the ends, it became thick and entered again cytoplasm. 4) The filament mountes in cytoplasm run through the small canal, and moreover it situted in eccentric position. 5) The cytoplasm constituting the body of organism had high density for electron beam, but as the culture elapsed it became inhomogeneous, and occasionally it was slit into several granular masses. 6) The cytoplasm and membrane of the organism gradully disintegrated by autoloysis as the culture elapsed : However, the axis filament remained still longer without to be autolysed. 7) It could not be detected the divission-figur of the organism