360 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



predominate in the following order, B. coli, B. lactis aerogenes, Eatero- 

 coccus, B. exilis, B. acidophilus, and B. bifidus • that is, in the order of 

 their sensibility to oxygen, and according to the strength of their 

 fermentation. The distribution of microbes in the intestine is the 

 result of three causes : {a) the sterilising action of the secretion of the 

 duodenum ; {b) the greater or less degree of oxygenation of the region ; 

 and (c) the greater or less ferment action of the bacteria. 



Spirillum pyogenes Mezincescu.* — R. Doerr isolated after death 

 from a case of cirrhosis of the liver, an organism which he regarded as 

 similar if not identical with the spirillum of Mezincescu. From the 

 purulent contents of the bile-ducts he prepared smears which showed 

 only solitary uon-Gram-staining rods, and which in culture resembled 

 the Bacillus coli communis. Smear preparations from the pus of the 

 pleural cavities and from the pericardium stained with warm dilute 

 carbol-fuchsin showed numerous comma-like curved rods 1 /x long and 

 very thin, two often attached sigma-like together, and frequently 4-f» 

 individuals united into a spirillum ; these forms were partly free and 

 partly included in the leucocytes ; they stained very badly with other 

 stains, and were decolorised by Gram's method. 



The author's original cultures having failed, he injected 2 c.cm. of 

 the pus intraperitoneally into a white mouse. The animal died within 

 48 hours ; in the peritoneal effusion he found great numbers of spirilla 

 identical in form and staining reaction with those observed in the pus. 

 Cultures were made from this peritoneal exudate on agar, blood agar, 

 broth, ascitic broth, and glucose broth ; after 48 hours the broth showed a 

 faint cloudiness, which later increased, and after a week there was a 

 greyish-white sediment at the bottom of the tube ; similar cultures grew 

 in ascitic broth and glucose broth, no gas being formed. No growth 

 was obtained in pepton-salt solution, milk, on potato, glycerin-agar, 

 glucose-agar, or gelatin ; nor was there any growth under anaerobic 

 conditions, nor at 22° C. It was not pathogenic for ordinary animals, 

 the apparent exception in the case of the mouse being due to the large 

 dose of the pus that was inoculated ; a similar dose inoculated into a 

 guinea-pig was without result. In spite of this he considers that this 

 organism was the cause of the purulent pericarditis. 



Micro-Organism causing an Epidemic Disease among Cats.t — 

 N. Mori describes the clinical and pathological appearances found in a 

 cat dying from an epidemic disease, which, during the summer of 11)03, 

 was attacking a number of cats in Sienna. 



On agar cultivations made from the blood, the liver, and the spleen, 

 he obtained pure cultures of an organism — a round-ended, motile 

 bacillus with 6-8 long peritrichal flagella, staining by the ordinary dyes, 

 but not by Gram nor Claudius ; a potential anaerobe, with an optimum 

 temperature between 30° and 37° ; it was killed by exposure to 45° C. for 

 30 minutes or 50° C. for 5 minutes ; it was very resistant to drying ; 

 spore formation was never observed. Grown in broth at 30°-37° C, 

 after G hours a uniform clouding appeared, and later a pellicle formed 



* Centralbl. Bakt., l'« Abt. Orig., xxxviii. (1905) p. 15. 

 t Tom. cit., pp. 42 and 1S6. 



