76 THE UNIVERSITY SCIENCE BULLETIN. 



the Digestive Ferments Company, and the peptone media of 

 Clark and Lubs. They found that : "The action of the staphy- 

 lococci upon glucose, maltose, sucrose and lactose would seem 

 to offer a possible basis of classification, although the marked 

 differences due to the effect of the medium would suggest the 

 use of this property as a differential test might prove of 

 doubtful value." 



They were able to divide the organisms into three main 

 groups. Group I, organisms fermenting all four sugars; 

 group II, organisms fermenting glucose, maltose and sucrose, 

 but not lactose. In group III they classified all the rest of the 

 strains and stated that it was a "highly heterogeneous agglom- 

 eration." 



They found that "gelatin liquefaction was slightly but dis- 

 tinctly more common among the active fermenters," and that 

 "white and orange pigments were fairly evenly divided among 

 the various fermentative groups with a slightly greater pre- 

 ponderance of vigorous fermenters in the orange than in the 

 white group." Their tests for indol were all negative and 

 nitrate broth gave almost uniformly positive results showing 

 reduction. 



Winslow, Rothberg and Parsons, after this extensive work 

 upon various sugars, nitrates, indol chromogenesis and gelatin 

 liquefaction, state that : "Fundamentally we are inclined to 

 agree with Dudgeon in considering the whole group a reason- 

 ably homogeneous one, and it seems clear the central type of 

 the whole genus is the orange-pigment forming, vigorously 

 fermenting, gelatin liquefying, somewhat actively pathogenic 

 St. aureus. As we depart from this type there is a progres- 

 sive weakening of the various biochemical activities of this 

 more vigorous form. The loss of one characteristic of the St. 

 aureus type tends in some degree to be associated with the loss 

 of others. Thus the white chromogens are less actively patho- 

 genic than the orange forms, less actively gelatinolytic and 

 slightly less vigorous in fermentation action. The forms 

 which fail to liquefy gelatin also tend to be less active ferment- 

 ers than the liquefiers." 



The object of the present paper was to obtain white, yellow 

 and orange staphylococci from as many different sources as 

 possible and to see whether the group would lend itself to 

 rational or satisfactory subdivision making use of fermenta- 



