.\i)Mi;.\ci,A'n i{i-; and (;i;m:i{ ai, s^s'^l■;Ms oi' (i.assii-ica'imox 



51 



have always occupied a proiniiuMil place. To 

 ('slal)lish tlic present position of llu'se two 

 jiieniM'ic names, and especiall\- their healing 

 upon sul)se(iiuMit systems of elassilieation, 

 lh(>ir hisloiieal siij;nilic'anc'e may he luialyzed 

 in fui'ther detail. 



Slreptothrix 



The nanu' Sin plolhri.r was proposed l)y 

 Cohn for an ortj;anism l)elon>>;in<2; to the 

 thread-forming hactiM'ia and "producing 

 concretions in the lachrymal duct." It was 

 described later by De Toni and Tre\'isan 

 (ISSD) as "filamentis tenuissimis, hyalinis, 

 l)arallele insimul st ratiformi-coalit is \-el fas- 

 ciculatis, rectis \el incur\-is, sparse irregu- 

 lariterque ramosis, in fragmenta inaecjualia 

 secedentius." 



As has been pointed out, this name be- 

 came the cause of considerable confusion, 

 due, on the one hand, to the fact that it had 

 been used previously by C'orda for one of 

 the Ilyphomycetes and had been codified 

 as a true fvnigus by Saccardo in his Sylloge 

 Fungorum; on the other hand, Cohn him- 

 self did not differentiate the organism sufh- 

 ciently from ('ladotliri.v, which prochiced 

 false iiranching (see also Mace). Freciuent 

 confusion with many other names given to 

 the group, notably Oospora, Actinomyces, 

 and Xocanh'a, did not contribute toward firm 

 establishment of the name Strcptothri.v in the 

 literature on the actinomycetes. Most of 

 those who used this generic name, beginning 

 with Clasperini in 1889 and ending with 

 (iratia and Dath in 11)24, included hi it the 

 air-l)()rne forms, and especially the forms 

 producing aerial mycelium and true spores. 

 This can be seen from the description of 

 Sttrptothrix by Chester (1901): "Cells in 

 their ordinary form as long branched fila- 

 ments. Cultures on solid media raised. 

 Cirowth coherent, dry, rough or crumpled, 

 often with a mold}' appearance due to the 

 formation of aerial hyphae. Without endo- 

 spores, but by a multiple segmentation of a 



Figure 22. (Jrowtli of a .sj)iral producing .strep- 

 tomvces. 



filament, the i)roduction of short, conidia- 

 like bodies." 



Various investigators, notably Pvossi- 

 Doria, Foulerton, and Musgrave and Clegg, 

 and others adopted the name Strcptothrix 

 largely for the reason that a better generic 

 designation for certain organisms was lack- 

 ing. Caminiti (1907) listed as many as 41 

 species, under this generic name. These in- 

 cluded a highly confusing conglomerate, 

 ranging from Strcptothrix actinomyccs Rossi- 

 Doria, which he considered as identical with 

 Actinomyces Imvis Harz, to Strcptothrix mihi 

 Caminiti, and from *S7. cppingcri (Cladothrix 

 asteroides), of which .S7. aurantiaca was con- 

 sidered as a nonpathogenic form, through 

 St. rubra or madurac of ^'incent, to St. 

 erysipeloides Rosenbach. 



On the other hand, some of the taxono- 

 mists like Lehmann and Xeumann and Iv F. 

 Smith discarded the name Strcptothrix com- 

 pletely. Rullmann (1917) also emphasized 

 the lack of A-alidity for this name. Buchanan 

 (1925) finally considered the name Strcpto- 



