xiv.1 Merrill and Wade: The Validity of Discomyces 67 
is no longer the property of its originator to withdraw or modify 
at will. 
Finally, to argue, as do Chalmers and Christopherson, that 
Discomycetacez, a group name, invalidates Discomyces as a 
generic name in the connection in which Rivolta used it, on 
the ground that the type genus of Fries’s Discomycetacee, 
published in 1836, should bear the designation Discomyces, in- 
dicates an erroneous conception of the principles of nomencla- 
ture and priority in technical names; a family name such as 
Discomycetacee cannot invalidate the generic name Discomyces 
any more than a generic name can invalidate a similar specific 
name. This generic name was new with Rivolta, and there is 
no valid objection to its adoption in taxonomy. 
Nocardia is no longer to be considered. Both it and Actino- 
cladothriz of Affanassiew and Schultz, the publication of which 
seems to have been completely ignored,. were proposed eleven 
years later and fall as synonyms of Discomyces Rivolta (1878), 
which genus is typified by Discomyces bovis (Harz) Rivolta. 
The question of division of the group is a different matter. 
It is our conception that the group, exhibiting as it does wide 
differences among the species, should be subdivided. However, 
neither the characters upon which separation was advocated by 
earlier writers (granule formation in tissues, club-ended fila- 
ments in the granules), nor those advanced by Pinoy (difficulty 
of cultivation, anaérobiosis, absence of arthrospores), ‘seem to 
be convincing for generic distinction. Granules may be formed 
in animal lesions by a variety of these organisms, and club 
formation is a variable feature even in typical actinomycosis. 
Anaérobiosis and difficulty of cultivation are not generically dis- 
tinctive botanically, nor so considered for other groups of mi- 
crodrganisms from the bacteriological viewpoint. Furthermore, 
these features characterize both the strains described by Israel 
and those studied by Wright. Should it appear desirable to di- 
vide the genus, this will probably be done on the basis of mor- 
phologic rather than metabolic differences. 
REFERENCES 
(1) AFFANASSIEW. St. Petersb. med. Wochenschr. (1888), 13, 76 and 83. 
Cited by Blanchard (1910). 
(2) AFFANASSIEW and SCHULTZ. Third Congress of Russian Physicians, 
St. Petersburg, Subsection for Bacteriology. Ref.: Centralbl. f. 
Bakt., etc., 1. Abt. (1889), 5, 683; also Baumgarten’s Jahresber. 
(1889), 5, 398... 
(3) AtmQuist, E. Zeitschr. f. Hyg. (1890), 8, 189. 
