xiv,1 Merrill and Wade: The Validity of Discomyces 57 
Rivolta, (53) in 1878, changed the generic name to Discomyces. 
After amplifying the descriptions of the granules (corpuscoli 
discoidi) that he had made in 1868 and 1875, he said in part: 
E vero chi i corpuscoli discoidi compressi si risolvono in pennelli od in 
ventagli fatti di rami e ramoscelli, mar percio non si ponno dire raggiati. 
Questa parola in storia naturale ha un senso ben determinato. Il com- 
plesso dei dischi che ci rappresenta, se si voule, un micelio, non ha la 
forma raggiata, e per consequenza non si puo denominar raggiata o come 
venne detto actinomyces, e nemmeno si debbono indicare i danni o le lesioni 
che produce con la parola actinomicosi. Il solo nome conveniente, a mio 
avviso, sarebbe quello di discomyces bovis, e con la parola sarcomicosi si 
potrebbero indicare le lesioni che produce vel corpo del bue. 
Harz (28) then published a separate description of the fungus, 
rejecting Rivolta’s change. 
Israel, (29) in 1878, used Actinomyces, but called attention to 
the similarity between the organism found in lesions in man 
and Cohn’s Streptothrix foersteri, a resemblance which, he said, 
Cohn himself had confirmed. Perroncito,(49) although himself 
employing Actinomyces, quoted a communication from Professor 
Garovaglio, director of the Cryptogamic Laboratories of the 
University of Padua, in which its previous use by Meyen (42) 
was noted. 
Rivolta (54) later declared that he was willing to accept Actino- 
myces bovis, but added that one could, nevertheless, form a group 
of pathogenic discomycetes containing: (1) Actinomyces bovis 
Harz; (2) Discomyces pleuriticus canis familiaris Rivolta; and 
(3) Discomyces equi Rivolta and Micellone. The second is now 
Cladothrix canis Rabe. (1898), and the third is known as a 
Micrococcus (M. botryogenes Rabe., M. ascoformans Johne, etc.). 
The first is, therefore, the only one of these organisms remaining 
in Rivolta’s genus, as thus amplified by him, and is the type of the 
genus, both as originally published and as later amplified. 
During this period systematists, who placed these organisms 
among the bacteria, denied the generic validity of Cohn’s Strepto- 
thriz. Winter,(61) Zopf, (63) Schroter, (58) and Baumgarten (5) 
considered it to be a synonym of Cladothriz. Schroter included, 
in the same family, the genus Actinomyces, this being apparently 
the first recognition of Harz’s organism in systematic classi- 
fication. Baumgarten concluded that the ray fungi belonged 
among the pleomorphic higher bacteria in the genus Cladothriz. 
MacFadyean(39) agreed that the organisms of actinomycosis 
probably belonged to the Schizomycetes; he held that the oc- 
currence of clublike elements in the granules was not of specific 
value because inconstantly formed. 
