In a patient in whom it was decided to excise the contracted tissue in two hands the more recently affected member was selected for experiment. The skin was incised under strict antiseptic precautions, portions of the growing tissue were cut away with the aid of a knife and forceps, sterilised by heat immediately before use, and the fragments excised were at once placed in cultivating tubes of agar-agar and gelatine. In a second case a commencing nodule upon the plantar fascia of a patient, suffering also from Dupuytren’s contraction of the hands, was treated in a similar manner. In Case 1 two of the three fragments quickly showed a growth obviously due to contamination. On the third and fourth days a yellow nodule appeared in all three specimens, and on cultivation assumed a form which led us to believe that a specific organism had been isolated; but on making a cover-glass preparation of this it proved to be merely a form of yellow sarcina. In the jelly tube containing one of the original pieces of tissue, and in the agar tube a second growth, _micrococcus candidans_, subsequently developed, and a like growth appeared in Case 2. It is desirable that these experiments should be repeated; but it must not be assumed that negative evidence necessarily disproves the agency of organisms; partly because our present means of detection are not yet perfected, and partly because the tissue examined may merely offer the result of a morbid process that has already come to a natural termination. Sections from Case 1 stained with fuchsin and by Gram’s method showed no organisms as viewed under 1/12 homogeneous immersion.