EXPERIMENT STATION REPORTS. 



253 



couditious for a period of teu days. Subsequent exaniiiuitiou showed 

 the presence of an organism in the stab cultures (agar plates and broth 

 tubes proved sterile) which possessed the following morphological, bio- 

 logical and cultural characteristics: 



Oval micrococcus, 0.8 to 1.0 micron in diameter; single or in chains 

 of two, three or four elements; frequently in pairs; Brownian move- 

 ment; does not form spores or possess capsule; stains distinctly and 

 uniformly with the aniline dyes and is gram-positive. Cultural char- 

 acteristics : grows onh' in stab culture for two months ; at present, 

 grows well aerobically in dextrose broth and as fine colonies on slants of 

 liver agar. Dextrose broth, (pH G.G) a uniform cloudiness is caused by 

 growth of the organism in 24 hours; slight sedimentation at the end of 

 three days, but never complete; no pellicle formation. 



Dextrose agar, growth appears upon the surface in 24 hours in the 

 form of small, flatly convex, colorless, transparent, non-granular col- 

 onies about 0.5 mm. in diameter. In stab cultures the growth appears 

 within 24 hours along the entire length of the stab as small brownish 

 foci. Gelatin, growth takes place along the line of stab in 24 hours; no 

 liquefaction. Potato, a slight moist glistening growth appeared in 24 

 hours made up of minute colonies. Litmus milk, acid and slight coagula- 

 tion produced in- 24 hours, firmly coagulated in one mass in 48 hours. 



FERMENTATION. 



-|- Sign=acid or gas production. 

 — Sign = no acid or gas production. 



Further study will be carried on in order to identify this organism and 

 to determine its pathogenic and antigenic properties. 



An outbreak of abortion in swine was brought to the attention of 

 this laboratory about March 1, 1920. The fetuses were expelled about 

 four weeks before time as they appeared fully developed and covered 

 over with hair. There were altogether six pregnant sows (pure bred 

 Duroc Jersey) in this herd of which three aborted and then gave birth 

 to normal healthy pigs. 



A bacteriological examination of one fetus revealed an organism 

 which gave the same cultural and serological characteristics as Bact. 

 abortus (Bang). 



Blood samples were drawn from the tail of three sows which had 

 aborted and from two virgin sows. Two of the samjiles from sows 

 which had aborted were positive and the remaining negative to the 

 agglutination and complement fixation tests for bovine infectious abor- 

 tion. [I. F. Huddleson,] 



