CLASSIFICATION OF ANAEROBIC BACTERIA 543 



NOMENCLATURE OF LOWER GROUPS 



Our next concern relates to the nomenclature of our genera 

 and species. We are peculiarly hampered in bacteriological 

 work, when we try to base our names for organisms upon their 

 behavior or characters. Morphology is a notoriously bad bac- 

 terial character for generic names, though it has long been used 

 as a generic character for our primary divisions of the bacteria 

 {Coccus, Bacillus, S'pirilliim) and apparently has a sound basis 

 in this case. Pathogenic action is an equally misleading char- 

 acter upon which to base generic names: most anaerobes are not 

 pathogenic and of those that are, various groups produce gas, 

 oedema, haemorrhagia, etc. Chemical action would be the best 

 type of character for descriptive purposes. But how often 

 might we not, in a group that is so enormous as that of the 

 bacteria, inappropriately name a new genus for a chemical 

 character that was possessed in a greater degree by other genera, 

 or was not possessed by all the members of the genus? There 

 is also a prejudice among botanists against the formation of 

 generic names from specific names, though such forms are not 

 unusual in zoological nomenclature. 



Dr. Karl F. Meyer has suggested to me the use, for purposes 

 of generic nomenclature, of patronymics, preferably of the name 

 of the author first describing the original species of a genus. 

 This seems to me the most fitting and logical procedure. It 

 has ample precedent in botanical nomenclature, and has been 

 used in bacteriological nomenclature for years: e.g., Pasteurella, 

 Eberthella. 



Recommendation V.e. (International Rules for Botanical 

 Nomenclature, Chap. Ill, Sec. 3, No. 3) will, if heeded in the 

 formation of generic names, aid greatly in overcoming conserva- 

 tive objections to the new system of classification. This recom- 

 mendation reads: "To recall, if possible, by the formation or 

 ending of the name, the affinities or the analogies of the genus." 

 Thus in the group of the cocci, -coccus has been accepted as the 

 usual termination of the generic appellations; -bacillus has never 

 been popular for such formations, probably on account" of its 



