CERTAIN GENERA OF THE CLOSTRIDIACEAE 25 



describes the cultural behavior of five strains of B. lelani. Two 

 papers on the behavior of my cultures arc forthcoming. 



This is not the genus Plectridium of Fischer. Plectridiuin 

 included some butj^ic acid bacteria, the tetanus bacillus, a 

 putrefactive organism, Plectridium putrificum, and other genera 

 not yet known; and it embraces, according to my scheme of 

 classification, elements altogether incoherent. Were the de- 

 scriptions fuller or were I better acquainted with the proteolytic 

 group, two more genera of proteolytic spherical end-sporers 

 might be suggested: Those that blacken meat readily, e.g., 

 B. cadaveris-sporogenes, Klein; and those which do not blacken 

 it at all, e.g., B. tctanoides B of Adamson. 



Genus 20. Markllillus nov. gen. 



Hardy Putrijicoideae that in meat medium multiply rapidly 

 at an early stage of incubation, producing a greyish coloration 

 and later a blackish deposit on the meat particles, and after 

 three days' incubation cease to multiply actively. Sporulate 

 early in the de\'elopment of a culture, later cease to do so but 

 vegetate very slowly. Produce very little gas in meat medium. 

 Digest milk. Attack a few sugars. Heavy deeply gram-positive 

 rods, may vary greatly in size. Spores usually cocoon-shaped, 

 usually median or sub-terminal, do not greatly bulge the sides 

 of the bacillus. Colonies in deep agar lenticular, irregular, or 

 stellate. Common putrefactive organisms that readily invade 

 tissue in company with other organisms, producing a greenish 

 proteolytic gangrene. I have found them in the heart's blood 

 and organs of a woman dying of pernicious vomiting and uraemic 

 poisoning and apparently the only invader in a mouse dying 

 from an otherwise unknown cause. The Committee find B. 

 bifermentans in acute cases of gas gangrene. Weinberg and 

 Seguin state that such an organism invades guineor-pigs in company 

 with B. perfringens. It is possible that Martellillus bacilli pro- 

 duce metabolites poisonous to themselves and to animals and 

 that cause early sporulation. They frequently cease active 

 multiplication when the culture has a reaction near pH 7.0. 



Type species M. bifermentans {Bacillus bifermentans-sporo- 

 geiies Tissier and Martelly) as defined by Tissier and Martelly. 



