754 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



Schizophyta. 

 Schizomycetes. 



Bacillus Pneumoniae Tigris.* — E. Marx found in smears prepared 

 from the lung of a tiger that had died with hemorrhagic pneumonia of 

 both lungs, a minute micro-organism that did not stain by Gram's 

 method, but showed distinct polar staining, and morphologically 

 resembled a bacterium rather than a coccus. Cultures made on blood- 

 agar and on serum resembled those of the influenza bacillus ; the 

 morphology of the organism varied on different media. On agar and in 

 broth they are ovoid rods about ' 6-0 ■ 8/x, long, and occasionally longer 

 forms ; on blood-agar the long forms predominate, and the ovoid 

 appearance is not so obvious ; on Loeffler's serum the rods are slender 

 like tubercle bacilli, and measure 2/a in length ; they are non-motile. 

 This bacillus is a strict aerobe ; it does not produce indol ; it is killed 

 by heating to 60° C. for one hour. It causes fatal septicaemia in mice, 

 guinea-pigs and rabbits, though the virulence for these last animals is 

 not very great. It is not especially virulent for cats. 



Bacillus metatyphosus.t — A. Nieter has examined the cultural 

 properties of the species described by Mandelbaum as B. metatyphosus, 

 and compared them with those of forty cultures of B. typhosus. There 

 is only slight or no influence on the haemoglobin of ordinary blood-agar, 

 but if this contains 1-2 p.c. of glycerin there is a distinct effect, and 

 with 6 p.c. glycerin-agar it is considerable ; with a G p.c. glycerin-agar 

 to which a few drops of rosol acid have been added, the growth of 

 B. typhosus is yellow, and that of B. metatyphosus is red ; the same 

 differences being observed with rosol acid glycerin-pepton water. 



Bacillus of Bang.} — J- Nowak gives an account of the bacillus 

 described by Bang as the cause of the specific abortion in cows, and 

 isolated from the exudate of the internal surface of the uterus, from the 

 foetal membranes, and from the blood and viscera of the aborted calves. 

 In liquid gelatin or blood-serum after a few days at 37° C. small 

 colonies appear only in a narrow zone of the medium situated about 

 15 mm. from the surface ; the organism belongs to a class of bacteria 

 intermediate to the anaerobes and aerobes, and requires an atmosphere 

 containing less than 10 p.c. of oxygen ; to separate the bacillus from the 

 other germs that are usually present in these cases, the establishing of 

 this atmospheric condition is essential. To attain this the author has 

 devised the following method : it consists in incubating tubes of sloped 

 agar inoculated with the exudate to be examined, together with similar 

 tubes of agar inoculated with Bacillus subtilis, under a sealed bell- jar, at 

 37° C. ; when the B. subtilis has absorbed sufficient oxygen the bacillus 

 of Bang commences to grow. 



The organism is a minute non-motile rod resembling the cocco- 

 bacillus of fowl cholera ; it stains with anilin dyes, often more strongly 

 at the poles, but does not stain with Gram's method ; it does not form 



* Centralbl. Bakt. lte Abt. Orig., xlvii. (1908) p. 581. 

 t Op. cit., lte Abt. Ref., xlii. (1908) p. 156. 

 % Ann. Inst. Pasteur, xxi. (1908) p. 541. 



