ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 89 



factory in Saxony. The organism was isolated from the cheese itself, 

 and also from splinters of the wood on which the cheese had stood. It 

 appeared together with many other organisms on plates of nutrient 

 gelatin and agar inoculated from the washings of the samples in sterile 

 water. The author has named the organism Micrococcus chromofiavus ; 

 the coccus measured " 9-1 ' 05 /x in diameter ; it was not motile ; it 

 stained well with carbol-fuchsin, but not by Gram's method ; an obli- 

 gate aerobe, it grew better at 35° C. than at 20° C, and growth was 

 less vigorous on acid than on alkaline media ; gelatin was liquefied ; 

 superficial colonies are round, having a greenish-yellow colour (becoming 

 brown) and a granular appearance ; broth is clouded, and forms an 

 abundant thready yellow deposit after four days at 20° C. Portions of 

 Tilsit cheese placed on filter paper that had been used in filtering a 

 broth culture (24 hours old), showed after a week a yellow-brown 

 coloration. 



Etiology of Whooping Cough.* — H.and A. Soulima have obtained 

 from each of a number of cases of whooping cough cultures of a small 

 rod-like organism, which appears identical in its morphology and 

 biology with the bacillus of Eppendorf, and also with the microbe of 

 Bordet and Genou. To isolate the organism with certainty, it was 

 necessary to select patients in which the disease had developed without 

 rise of temperature. The expectoration was collected during paroxysms 

 of cough, repeatedly washed in warm sterile " eau physiologique," and 

 used to inoculate freshly prepared blood-agar plates. 



Mammitis produced by Acid-fast Bacilli, t — L. N . Larrier and 

 P. Boveri inoculated the mammae of female guinea-pigs with various 

 acid-fast bacilli, and compared the resulting mammitis with that pro- 

 duced by Koch's tubercle bacillus. The authors found that, whereas 

 the tubercle bacillus caused a suppurative and ulcerative mammitis 

 accompanied by " adenopathie," which was manifested by the 8th to 10th 

 day, the mammitis produced by the other acid-fast bacilli occurred earlier, 

 was transitory, having ceased by the 0th day, and was benign and un- 

 accompanied by tegumentary ulceration or adenopathy. Tubercle bacilli 

 can be demonstrated in the milk from 10 to 15 days after inoculation, 

 but in the benign mammitis the milk was free from acid-fast bacilli after 

 the 8th day. 



Tropism of Bacillus Zopfii.f — E. Sergent has observed the direc- 

 tions assumed by ,the filaments of growth in cultures of B. zopfii on 

 gelatin. The author found that this organism is particularly sensitive 

 to the elastic property of the gelatin. When the gelatin is stretched 

 the filaments take the direction of the force of tension ; when the 

 gelatin is compressed, the filaments follow a direction perpendicular to 

 the force of compression. Since gravity is the commonest cause 

 actuating the elasticity of the gelatin, the tropism of B. zopfii may be 

 regarded as geotropic. 



* C.R. Soc. Biol. Paris, lxiii. (1907) p. 11. f Tom. cit., p. 15. 



+ Ann. Inst. Pasteur, lxiii. (1907) p. \±1 . 



