294 



SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCH KS RELATING TO 



11)09-1911, after the introduction of inoculation with the mixed 

 vaccine : — 



Sperm Oil Turbercle Bacilli.*— A. H. Miller has followed up a 

 suggestion with regard to the employment of wax media for the cultiva- 

 tion of the tubercle bacillus. Solid waxes were first added to agar — e.g. 

 beeswax, gondang, pisang, carnuba, and Chinese wax, neutral soaps 

 being included so as. to assist mixing. 



No growth occurred on these media, but it was found that the em- 

 ployment of a liquid wax, e.g. sperm oil, gave a satisfactory growth. 

 The bacilli must be actively growing, old cultures not showing any 

 development on oil media. A moist growth appears in about twelve days, 

 but the bacilli do not appear to be different from those obtained from 

 other sources. After a further period of about three weeks curious 

 morphological differences become manifest, the organism growing on 

 the surface of 5 p.c. crude oil and 5 p.c. glycerin as a thick uniform 

 greasy pellicle. Microscopically it alters considerably in shape and 

 form, beginning to branch and exhibiting "granules" or "spore-bodies" 

 and irregularities in staining. A two months' old culture was passed 

 through "a guinea-pig, the animal dying twenty-two days later, with the 

 liver, spleen, omentum and glands nearly solid with tubercles. Many of 

 the bacilli from these lesions exhibited the " granule " or " spore-body ' 

 sharply defined and intensely stained, and having attached to it the 

 bacillary portion of the organism. It is also to be noted that there were 

 forms present in which two " spore-bodies " were fused together with 

 their bacillary portions issuing out at opposite poles. With the above 

 characteristics it is difficult to regard these bodies as in any way de- 

 generative. 



Bacterium of G-ummy Beet-roots. f— G. Arnaud describes a con- 

 dition which has been recently met with in the French sugar-beet, in 

 which the cellular elements become destroyed and the intercellular spaces 

 become filled with a gummy material. This condition is invariably 

 associated with the presence of a bacillus, which resembles morpho- 

 logically the Bacterium mori of Murier. 



In beet-root juice media at high temperatures (88° to 40° C.) the 

 bacterium either develops as long thin filaments without segmentation, 

 or as elements undergoing process of segmentation, so as to suggest the 



* Lancet, 1915, i. pp. 704-5 (2 figs.). 



t Comptes Rendus, clx. (1915) pp. 350-2. 



