318 BIOLOGY OF PNEUMOCOCCUS 



tato slants, or in gelatine. Growth was similarly slow on a solid me- 

 dium composed of agar and the mineral medium containing Type 

 II polysaccharide. In the mineral medium to which one per cent of 

 carbohydrate was added, some strains of the organism fermented 

 maltose, xylose, and dextrin, while all strains decomposed lactose 

 and saccharose. 



The cultures broke down the Type II cellular carbohydrate of 

 Wadsworth and Brown as well as the soluble specific substance of 

 the same type, but failed to dissolve the specific polysaccharides 

 of Type I and III pneumococci. In the case of this organism, how- 

 ever, the enzyme was active only when the body of the organism 

 was present, but Sickles and Shaw apparently did not test filtrates 

 from the cultures. At that time no experiments were performed on 

 the protective properties of this culture. It was observed, how- 

 ever, that the organism in decomposing the cellular carbohydrate 

 robbed it of its purpura-producing property, but this effect may 

 have been due to the digestion of admixed protein material of pneu- 

 mococcal origin by a proteolytic ferment in the enzymatic prepa- 

 ration employed. 



In a later paper, Sickles and Shaw 1283 reported the isolation 

 from soil of another organism — a small Gram-negative bacillus — 

 which acted on the Type I specific carbohydrate but failed to ef- 

 fect a complete decomposition of that substance, since it never 

 fully lost its precipitating ability with homologous serum. Sickles 

 and Shaw suggested that this residual reaction was due to an un- 

 used portion of the original carbohydrate or to products of de- 

 composition, which might either be present in the original sample 

 or be formed as a result of the action of the microorganism from 

 the soil. Another possibility presents itself and that is that the au- 

 thors' carbohydrate preparation may have contained a fraction 

 which was not susceptible to the enzymatic action of the culture. 

 It was impossible to obtain any soluble enzyme from this organism. 



Several of Sickles and Shaw's cultures decomposed the non- 

 type-specific carbohydrate isolated by Wadsworth and Brown (the 



