A MUTATING, MUCOID PARATYPHOIDBACILLUS 

 ISOLATED FROM THE URINE OF A CARRIER 



TH. THJ0TTA and ODD KINCK EIDE 



From The Bacteriological Laboratory of the Norwegian Medical Corps, Kristiania 

 Received for publication March 30, 1920 



Mutating strains of paratyphoidbacilli are mentioned several 

 times, especially by Baerthlein who has described different forms 

 of colonies and variants in respect to the size of the bacilli. 

 Recently a mutating form was described by Fletcher who found 

 that the stool of a carrier who was examined at regular intervals 

 suddenly became almost free of the typical colonies of para- 

 typhoidbacilli. Simultaneously he found a new form of bacillus 

 that he had not been aware of before. This microbe formed 

 large wet colonies on the agar and did not agglutinate in a para- 

 typhoidserum. Fletcher considered the microbe a mutating 

 form of paratyphoid and called it mucoid on account of its 

 wet mucuslike consistency. 



With the exception of Fletcher the earlier authors on the sub- 

 ject of transmutation in paratyphoidbacilli do not seem to have 

 observed many alterations as to the agglutination in mutating 

 bacilli, and in the case of Fletcher this author does not bring 

 forth any explanation of the lack of agglutinability. We have 

 therefore thought it worth while to present an account of a 

 paratyphoid strain, that we have watched while mutating and 

 made the object of a fairly minute examination. 



This strain was isolated from the urine of a man whose record 

 of sickness is as follows: 



In December, 1918 he contracted paratyphoid fever of the ordinary 

 type. In January of the following year he had a severe attack of 

 pyelitis of paratyphoid origin. This first attack was followed by nu- 

 merous others and the patient developed a condition of chronic pyelitis 

 with a continuous discharge of paratyphoidbacilli in his urine. The 



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