MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 173 



ANTHRAX-LIKE BACILLI. 



DAVID J. LEVY. 



A short time ago I received some hair and crusts from the skin of 

 cattle of the western part of this county for examination for the possible 

 jjresence of a tricophyton-like organism. The material was ground up 

 with sterile sand in a sterile mortar and plain agar plates were poured 

 tind developed at 30° C. On examining these plates 48 hours later there 

 were found in addition to the mycelial growth various bacterial colonies, 

 among them several consisting of symmetrically woven, convoluted 

 strands, presenting the typical macroscopic and microscopic picture of 

 the medusa-head colony of anthrax. Furthermore, on hanging drop ex- 

 amination, this colony was found to consist of bacilli forming long, in- 

 terwoven threads. The individuals were observed to possess nearly 

 f;quared ends, were apparently motionless and presented the characteris- 

 tic form, size and arrangement of the anthrax bacillus. 



Microscopically, the colonies and germs were indistinguishable from 

 the anthrax bacillus. Although there was no suspicion of anthrax in the 

 cattle from which the hairs and the crusts were obtained, and although 

 anthrax does not exist and so far as I know has not existed in Michigan, 

 the occurrence at any time of the bacillus here in a weakened or a virulent 

 condition is by no means impossible. It seemed desirable to determine 

 whether the organism in question was an anthrax bacillus or an ordinary 

 saprophyte. It may be stated in advance that the results thus far at- 

 tained show that the germ is not the anthrax bacillus but a bacillus 

 resembling the latter in many of its properties. This circumstance led 

 to a review of the literature of anthrax-like bacilli, and it is the purpose 

 of this paper briefly to discuss these, and to point out certain differences 

 among them, and the relations they bear to the organism isolated here. 

 To that end it may be well to describe the latter organism first. 



In form and size it closely resembles the anthrax bacillus, save in 

 points to be brought out below. It forms median spores and stains by 

 Gram's method. The colonies on agar plates present, as before indi- 

 cated, the typical medusa-head appearance. On transferring the original 

 colonies to inclined agar tubes, the resulting growth, while presenting 

 the gross appearance of anthrax, on microscopical examination showed 

 no felted arrangement, but consisted of irregular granular colonies. On 

 replating these cultures however, typical medusa-head colonies were 

 again obtained and this apparent irregularity has not since been met. 



As before stated, the examination of the original colony showed it to 

 consist of apparently non-motile bacilli, of the form and size of anthrax 

 bacilli, forming the characteristic long threads. On microscopical ex- 

 amination of the sub-cultures however, instead of long threads there 

 were only short ones, very many of the bacilli were single, these latter 

 possessed quite rounded ends and were slightly ret undoubtedly motile. 

 In some instances the motility of the single rods and even of short 

 chains was marked. It required replating with the consequent produc- 

 tion of medusa-heads to convince me that this germ Avas the one originally 



