756 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



production. This form of milk fermentation is caused by many different 

 bacteria, which are classed as lactococcus and lacto-bacillus ; they are 

 non-motile non-sporing organisms, that resist heating to 65° C. and 

 75° C. ; they require nitrogen in the form of pepton, and carbon in 

 various forms of sugar ; they do not peptonise proteids, and do not 

 liquefy gelatin ; some forms are aerobic, others anaerobic. All active 

 lactic acid ferments invert sugar, and more or less readily decompose 

 esculin and indican, but notamygdalin ; they reduce levulose tomannite. 

 The slime-producing forms have an optimum temperature of 20° C. or 

 lower. 



Tetradiplococcus filiformans Lodzensis.* — St. Bartoszewicz and 

 J. Schwarzwasser have isolated from well-water at Lodz a diplococcus 

 which in hanging-drop appears as a tetrad, each corner of which re- 

 presents a diplococcus of gonococcal form ; usually three or more tetrads 

 are grouped together and form an irregular membrane, in which the 

 cocci are distributed as at the margin of a hanging-drop. In fresh 

 culture the tetrads exhibit an active rotatory movement, but no flagella 

 could be detected. The tetrads are 4-G ^ in size ; growth occurs at 

 room temperature, but more freely at 37° C. 



In the depth of gelatin-plate culture, after a few days, they form 

 round shining pin-head colonies, with a mother-of-pearl tint ; the medium 

 is not liquefied. In broth, growth appears as delicate white threads that 

 grow upwards from the bottom of the tube, and which either reach to the 

 surface and form a fine pellicle, or bend back again to the bottom ; at 

 room temperature this thread formation does not occur, but a slimy 

 deposit collects at the bottom of the tube ; the medium always remains 

 clear. The threads appear to consist of tetrads bound together by 

 flagella and slime. 



Melitensis Septicaemia. f — J. W. H. Eyre in his Milroy Lectures 

 before the Royal College of Physicians, London, gave an exhaustive 

 account of this disease, commonly known as Malta Fever. The author, 

 referring to the history of the subject, quotes Hippocrates and other 

 ancient writers to show that this fever was recognised in olden times. 

 Its distribution extends over the Mediterranean coasts and islands, and 

 cases are reported from India, China, and South Africa. 



The disease is described as a septicaemia due to the infection by the 

 Micrococcus melitensis, having definitely recognised clinical signs, and 

 readily diagnosed by the serum agglutination test. It has a maximum 

 incidence in the hottest season of the year. 



It is generally believed that the leisured classes are more prone to 

 this disease than the labouring people, but the author discredits this, 

 and considers that the cases among the peasants are frequently not 

 attended or reported, though military statistics show that the officers are 

 more liable than the men. 



The author describes the bacteriological attributes of the organism, 

 and the effects produced in lower animals by inoculation of living 



* Centralbl. Bakt., 2te Abt., xxi. (1908) p. 614. 

 t Lancet (1908) i. pp. 1677-82, 1747-52, 1826-32. 



