ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 81 



radiate numerous very slender, straight or curved, sometimes long spiral 

 offshoots. 



Coli colonies, on the other hand, are dark yellow-brown in colour, 

 very variable in size, round or irregular, and coarsely granular ; around 

 each colony may be seen one or more concentric zones, as if of ground 

 glass, in which situation daughter colonies frequently develop. 



B. dysenterm and a slowly liquefying bacillus (unnamed) give rise 

 to colonies indistinguishable from those of the B. typhosus, but none 

 other of the organisms studied by Krause could possible give rise to 

 confusion. 



Bacterium Fragi.* — W. Eichholz describes a new bacillus which he 

 isolated from a sample of milk, to which it had given a distinct straw- 

 berry smell. 



The organism in question was a long motile bacillus, 1*75 to 2' 10 fi 

 long by 1 • 05 //< broad, possessing a tuft of flagella at one pole. Upon 

 lactose-gelatin plates the organism forms characteristic small, whitish, 

 rosette-soaped colonies, with a coarsely granular mass of concentric 

 circles, the periphery around this central mass being thin, flat, spreading, 

 and marked with radiating lines, the colony thus resembling the flower 

 of the daisy. The organism does not form spores, and its optimum 

 temperature lies between 26° and 29° C, its range being from l-5°0. to 

 37° C, and its thermal death-point is about 75° C. When grown in 

 milk there is neither gas-formation nor clotting, but after three days at 

 the room temperature the milk possesses a rotten smell ; by about the 

 eighth day this has given place to a distinct odour of strawberries, which 

 lasts for a considerable period, the milk undergoing no further change. 



Bacillus aerogenes aerophilus agilis.f — A. Uffenheimer describes a 

 new gas-forming bacillus to which he has given the name B. aeroyems 

 aerophilus ayilis sp.n., isolated from the liver, spleen, and blood, as well 

 as from the placental site, in a case of general infection and death 

 following abortion. 



The bacillus occurs as thick rods, about the same size as the anthrax 

 bacillus, with rounded ends ; it stains easily and is not decolorised 

 when treated by Gram's method. The colonies on agar plates were not 

 characteristic ; they were whitish -grey in colour and generally round. 

 In agar-stab cultivations growth occurs, and along the line of puncture 

 numerous gas bubbles are formed. In gelatin plates the colonies were 

 quite small and translucent, and later became turbid greyish-white in 

 colour. In sugar media copious gas formation occurs, and in broth 

 general turbidity. Milk is coagulated at 37° C. Anaerobic cultures by 

 Buchner's method yielded only a very scanty growth. 



The vitality of the bacillus is short: Inoculation experiments were 

 made upon white mice, guinea-pigs, and rabbits, subcutaneously and 

 intraperitoneally, and in the case of one rabbit, intravenously. Several 

 of the animals showed no reaction whatever ; one of the guinea-pigs, 

 which was bled copiously a week after the injection, died four days later. 

 After death the body was placed in the incubator, and after 24 hours 



* Centralbl. Bakt., 2" Abt. (1902) pp. 425-8. 



t Op. cit,. 1" Abt. (Ref.), xxxi. (1902) pp. 533-5. See also Beitr. z. Path. 

 Anat. u. Allgem. Pathol., xxxi. (1902). 



Feb. 18th, 1903 g 



