364 



ORDER IV. EUBACTERIALES 



Short rods, 0.5 by 0.6 micron, occurring 

 in pairs, sometimes in fours or, in broth, in 

 long filaments. Actively motile. Gram-nega- 

 tive. 



Gelatin colonies: Small, j-ellowish gray 

 becoming pink, very slimy. Carmine-red 

 pellicle. Liquefaction. 



Gelatin stab: Rapid liquefaction. Grajdsh 

 pellicle which becomes red after 24 hours 

 and later precipitates. Slimy. 



Agar colonies: Dull, white to pinkish 

 growth. 



Broth: Rapid turbidity; thick, slimy, 

 white pellicle which later turns red; purplish 

 sediment; liquid becomes pink and syrupy; 

 in old cultures the broth is brown. 



Potato: At 37° to 39° C., red pigment visi- 

 ble after 8 hours. At room temperatures 

 growth is at first white and slimy, later red. 



Strong odor of trimethylamine. 



Distinctive characters: Pigment soluble 

 in alcohol. Good pigment production at 

 37° to 39° C. The original cultures were 

 heavily pigmented, and thus the pigment 

 showed some solubility in water as does that 



of Serratia tnarcescens Bizio under similar 

 conditions. The original cultures were slimy, 

 but slimy (mucoid) cultures also occur in 

 S. marcescens. 



Comments: In recent years cultures of 

 Serratia have been isolated from various 

 human infections (Gurevitch and Weber, 

 loc. cit.; Wheat, Zuckerman and Rantz, 

 Arch. Internal Med., 88, 1951, 461; Vernon 

 and Hepler, Quart. Bull., Northwestern 

 Univ. Med. School, 28, 1954, 366). In some 

 of these cases, new names have been given 

 to the organisms isolated without adequate 

 justification, for these organisms seem to 

 possess the same characters as do those that 

 were originally isolated from felons on the 

 hands of men handling fish. 



Source: Isolated in 1893 from a box of 

 oil-packed sardines at a canning factory in 

 France. Also found in the red pus from fish- 

 ermen and sardine-factory workers suffering 

 from felons. In these lesions this organism 

 is associated with an anaerobe, but by itself 

 it is not pathogenic. 



Habitat: Presumably widely distributed. 



TRIBE IV. PROTEEAE CASTELLANI AND CHALMERS, 1919. 



(Manual of Trop. Med., 3rd ed., 1919, 932.) 

 Pro.te'e.ae. Gr. noun Proteus type genus of the tribe; -eae ending to denote a tribe; 

 M.L. fem.pl.n. Proteeae the Proteus tribe. 

 Characters as for the genus. 

 There is a single genus. 



Genus VIII. Proteus Hauser, 1885.* 



(Hauser, Sitzber. d. phys.-med. Sozietat zu Erlangen, 1885, 156; Liquidohacterium Orla- 



Jensen,' Cent. f. Bakt., II Abt., 22, 1909, 337; Spirilina Hueppe, Wiesbaden, 1886, 146; 



Eisenbergia Enderlein, Sitzber. Ges. Naturf. Freunde, Berlin, 1917, 315.) 



Pro'te.us. Gr. noun Proteus an ocean god who took many shapes. 



Straight rods. Motile by means of peritrichous, occasionally very numerous, flagella; 

 generally actively motile at 25° C, but at 37° C. motility may be weak or absent. f Gram- 

 negative. Two species (Proteus vulgaris and P. mirabilis) produce amoeboid colonies which 

 show a swarming phenomenon on solid media devoid of bile salts. On moist agar the re- 

 maining species produce colonies which spread to some extent. Spreading colonies can 

 usually be induced to swarm. Pleomorphism is characteristic only of young, actively swarm- 



Revised by Prof. C. A. Stuart, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, July, 



1955. 



t See Leifson, Carhart and Fulton (Jour. Bact. 

 the type of flagellation found in this genus. 



1955, 73) for a recent discussion of 



