432 FREDERICK EBERSON 



bation over night at 37°C. Transplants were made to glucose 

 agar at monthly intervals. Luxuriant growth was obtained 

 with all of the strains studied for a period of five months, after 

 which the tests were curtailed. It is preferable, perhaps, to 

 store cultures at incubator temperature in order to maintain 

 a "body environment," but insofar as viability is concerned, 

 there seems to be no difference between the two methods, for 

 the time observed. 



No tests have been made to determine the effect of such storage 

 on virulence. A few experiments, however, have been designed 

 with a view to disclosing any possible changes in agglutinogen 

 or agglutinin content of meningococcus. The results indicate 

 that monovalent sera obtained with strains grown on yeast 

 medium for several months do not differ in agglutinating proper- 

 ties from sera developed with cultures which have been grown 

 on the usual media. Similarly, cultures which have been grow- 

 ing on yeast media for a long time are agglutinated by polyvalent 

 sera to the same extent as are cultures grown on other media. 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS. 



Meningococcus cultures in semi-solid yeast agar when stored 

 either at room temperature or in the incubator at 37°C, were 

 still fully viable after five months. 



In all likelihood the antigenic nature of the organisms remains 

 unaltered as may be indicated by comparative agglutination 

 tests. 



REFERENCES 



Ayers, S., and Rttpp, Henry 1920 J. Bacterid., 5, 89. 



Eberson, Frederick 1919 Proceedings (1918) Society of American Bacteri- 

 ologists. Abst. of Bacterid., 3, 10; J. Am. Med. Assoc, 72, 852. 



