DISSOCIATION AND TRANSFORMATION 167 



terial species fits into a more or less orderly pattern." This pat- 

 tern, besides fitting bacilli of the colon-typhoid-dysentery group, 

 the types of B. friedlanderi, and probably the streptococci, would 

 bring order in the arrangement of the many variants of pneumo- 

 cocci that have been described under a wide diversity of terms. 

 Thus, the modifications A, B, and C of Schnitzer and Berger, 

 Blake and Trask's intermediates Type I a, b, c, d, and e, Wads- 

 worth and Sickles' atypical strains, Reimann's daughter-colony 

 variants, the "wall" type of Buerger, the Flatterformen of Grum- 

 bach, possibly the P-C or phantom colonies and the smooth N and 

 the smooth V types of Eaton, the variants of Kimura, Sukneff, 

 and Meyer, the atypical rough forms from budding colonies re- 

 ported by Paul, the SU and RK dissociants of Klumpen, and of 

 course the R and S forms of Griffith, and the new variant of Daw- 

 son might conceivably be arranged in accordance with the general 

 pattern and would all either fall into the chief places designated by 

 Dawson's M, S, and R or into the spaces between these predomi- 

 nating forms. 



The scheme of Dawson, therefore, revolutionary as it may seem, 

 merits further consideration and should be subjected to additional 

 experimental trial before it is rejected or finally accepted. 



These discoveries concerning the variability of Pneumococcus 

 are full of new meaning to the bacteriologist, biochemist, immu- 

 nologist, and particularly to the physiologist. They prove that 

 Pneumococcus has the potential ability to synthesize simple sugars 

 into diverse, complex, and highly individual polysaccharides. When 

 the conditions of the surroundings are entirely favorable, this 

 metabolic process operates uniformly. The end products are al- 

 ways of the same molecular composition and configuration, and 

 are highly distinctive of a given serological and biochemical type. 

 When, however, the forces of the environment are inimical, the 

 function of carbohydrate synthesis is retarded, the cell produces 

 less and less of the distinguishing capsular polysaccharide, and the 

 cocci lose their capsule, virulence, and strict racial identity. If the 



