BACILLUS OF MORGAN 75 



From these cases of intestinal disturbance typical strains of 

 the bacillus no. I of Morgan were isolated, while it was impossible 

 to discover the presence of other pathogenic germs. 



Seven of these strains have been studied immediately after 

 isolation as well as after one and a half years of growth on arti- 

 ficial media, and most of them altered their characters consid- 

 erably during this time. Thus while only one strain was im- 

 mobile on isolation, only one had kept its faculty of motility at 

 the end of the examination. Further, two strains had lost their 

 power of producing gas in glucose and had achieved the faculty 

 of producing acid in mannitol and sucrose. As these strains had 

 also lost their motility they could culturally no longer be recog- 

 nized as belonging to the Morgan group, but had to be looked 

 upon as dysentery strains. 



Serologically there could not be detected any relation between 

 these strains and other pathogenic microbes such as typhoid, 

 paratyphoid A and B, dysentery I, II and III or colon bacilli. 

 Neither was it possible to find any considerable relation between 

 the various strains themselves, nor did any of the strains show 

 the slightest agglutination in the serum from the patients. 



The bacillus no. I of Morgan has hitherto as mentioned before 

 been found and described by a few authors; but it has never been 

 given the place in the bacteriological system where it really 

 belongs. 



In considering the question of the identity of this microbe 

 we must first put another question : Is the bacillus of Morgan a 

 microbe sui generis or does it consist of several biologically dif- 

 ferent microbes that only show the same cultural character? 

 It is obvious, that this microbe is not' such a well defined germ 

 as the typhoid bacillus, and its characters are in a way not so 

 fixed and stable, since they may alter during the saprophytic 

 growth on artificial media. Yet the fermentative reactions of 

 most of the strains are fairly characteristic even after a long 

 period of saprophytic growth. If therefore one should consider 

 only the cultural characters it is likely that one would look 

 upon the bacillus of Morgan as a special kind of bacillus and 

 put it somewhere in the neighborhood of the colon and the 



