210 BACTERIOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS MADE AT LITTLE BAY, 



Now it will not, I think, be surprising to hear that among the 

 different colonies — they developed in a comparatively short time 

 (see above) — such as belong to typhoid-bacilli could not always be 

 detected. It must be remembered that, first, a plentiful occui-rence 

 of typhoid-bacilli in the contents of the small intestine, and conse- 

 quently in the faeces, depends on a certain phase in the coui'se of 

 the disease ; that, secondly, the data of the patients with regard to the 

 beginning of the fever are not always quite reliable ; and that, thirdly, 

 after what Dr. Peirce was good enough to tell me, perhaps not all 

 the cases under treatment, which furnished me with material, 

 might have had to do with typhoid proper. I myself witnessed 

 in the above Hospital a 2^ost mortem examination made by Dr. 

 Young on a man who had been sent to that institution as suffering 

 from pneumonia, presumably secondary to typhoid-fever ; the 

 ileum, however, failed to show any traces of there having lately 

 existed alterations of a typhoid character. In gelatine and agar- 

 agar sown with pulp of spleen grew two kinds of colonies of 

 micrococci which were not further examined. 



As already indicated in several cultivations, especially when 

 the disease was in middle stages, colonies in more or less 

 considerable numbers were found which actually proved to be 

 the bacillus of typhoid fever. I may abstain here, just as I did 

 above, from entering into a detailed description of the characters 

 exhibited by the bacilli under cultivation in the different nutrient 

 media, etc. ; those who are more especially interested in the 

 matter will find every information in Flligge's Mici'oorganismen, 

 Leipzig, 1886. What is besides necessary to know about 

 variations in their mode of growth on boiled potatoes has been 

 dealt with above (pp. 205-207). 



Time did not permit me to study the behaviour of the other 

 bacteria from the dejecta more than was required for the in 

 tended isolation of the typhoid-bacillus. As a rule such colonies 

 as were liquefying the gelatine were quantitatively very few in 

 comparison with non-liquefying ones. Among the latter group, 



