918 ON THE EXAMINATION OF WATER FROM THE SYDNEY SUPPLY r 



When quite young — I examined them -01-'08 mm. in diameter — 

 the colonies are, in optical section, circular, translucent, with a 

 light-grey colour, and possessed of perfectly smooth, well denned 

 outlines. Contents homogeneous, slightly granulate. 



In nutrient gelatine in a test-tube this bacillus grows pretty slowly 

 to a whitish solid thread of equal dimensions throughout all its 

 length. The contents of this thread are not homogeneous inasmuch 

 as it appears to be made up, notably at its edges, of great numbers 

 of larger or smaller beads. At the surface of the gelatine the 

 growth is more marked, extending centrifugally beyond the point 

 of inoculation, and forming a shining, irregularly indented film or 

 pellicle of a bluish-grey colour. 



This micro-organism causes no liquefaction whatever of the 

 gelatine, neither in test-tubes, nor on plates. 



On an oblique surface of nutrient agar-agar it grows readily, 

 and when exposed in an incubator at blood-temperature it multi- 

 plies considerably, within less than two days, to indistinctly greyish- 

 white, jelly-like, superficial layers which suddenly cease to increase 

 in size, and do not extend all over the free surface of the nutritive 

 soil. On microscopical examination endogenous spore-formation 

 was found to exist. This bacterium usually made its appearance on 

 the cultivation plates, supplying, on the average, the largest contri- 

 bution to the whole of the bacteria cultivated. 



At first sight of the colonies and test-tube cultivations of this 

 bacillus, I thought of the possibility of its being perhaps the 

 bacillus of typhoid fever. The microscopical appearances, are how- 

 ever, against such a possibility. I have not yet finished cultivating 

 it on potatoes at blood-temperature, nor have I hitherto made with 

 it any inoculation experiments on animals. In addition to that it 

 would be of paramount importance to have as standards of 

 comparison, for this and other similar forms which might be 

 detected in Sydney water or elsewhere, pure cultivations of the 

 Bacillus typhosus. Such a pure culture, also of other pathogenic 

 Schizomycetes, I expect daily from Professor Fliigge, Director of 

 the Hygienic Institution at Gottingen University, Germany. 



