396 



ORDER IV. EUBACTERIALES 



Med. Veter., N.S. 60, 1898, 836); Bacillus 

 septicaemiae haemorrhagicae Sternberg, Man. 

 of Bact., 1893, 408; Bacterium muUocidum 

 Lehmann and Neumann, Bakt., Diag., 2 

 Aufl., 2, 1899, 196; Rosenbusch and Mer- 

 chant, Jour. Bact., 37, 1939, 85.) 



mul.to'ci.da. L. adj. multus many;L. v. 

 L. adj .suffix -cidus from L. v. caedo to cut, 

 kill; M.L. adj. muUocidus many-killing, i.e., 

 killing many kinds (of animals) . 



Description taken from Schiitze (Med. 

 Res. Council, Syst. of Bact., London, 4, 

 1929, 451) who prepared it from studies of 

 230 strains described by 17 authors during 

 the years 1908 to 1926. 



Short, ellipsoidal rods, 0.3 to 1.25 microns 

 in length, occurring singly, in pairs, rarely 

 in chains. Non-motile. Show bipolar stain- 

 ing. Gram-negative. 



Gelatin: No liquefaction. 



Agar: Fine, translucent growth; charac- 

 teristic odor. A complex dissociation pattern 

 is shown. Many strains recovered from nor- 

 mal respiratory passages and from some 

 chronic infections are in the mucoid phase 

 and generally show a relatively lower viru- 

 lence. Strains from acute cases of fowl chol- 

 era and hemorrhagic septicemia are in the 

 fluorescent (iridescent) phase and are highly 

 virulent (Carter, Canadian Journal Comp. 

 Med. and Vet. Sci., 16, 1952, 150). 



Blood agar: No hemolysis. 



Broth: Uniform turbidity; characteristic 

 odor. 



Milk: No change in reaction; no coagula- 

 tion. 



Potato: No visible growth. 



Indole is produced. 



Hydrogen sulfide is produced. 



Acid but no gas from glucose, mannitol 

 (usually), sucrose, fructose, sorbitol, galac- 

 tose, mannose, xylose (usually) and tre- 

 halose (usually). No acid from lactose, 

 dulcitol, arabinose (usually), amygdalin, 

 maltose (usually), raffinose, rhamnose, 

 adonitol, dextrin, inulin, glycerol, salicin 

 (usually) or erythritol. Groupings based on 

 differences in sugar fermentations using 

 xylose, arabinose, dulcitol, etc. do not ap- 

 pear to be natural ones. 



Nitrites produced from nitrates. 



Temperature relations: Optimum, 37° C. 

 Killed at temperatures above 45° C. 



Aerobic to facultatively anaerobic. 



Four distinct serological types. A, B, C 

 and D, have been recognized (Carter, 

 Amer. Jour. Vet. Res., 16, 1955, 481). 



Virulent for laboratory animals, espe- 

 cially mice and rabbits. 



Distinctive characters : Grows on ordinary 

 media. Bile salts inhibit growth. 



Relationships of this species: Few species 

 of bacteria have been given so many differ- 

 ent names as the organism causing the so- 

 called chicken cholera of birds and the 

 hemorrhagic septicemia of mammals. Pas- 

 teur (Compt. rend. Acad. Sci., Paris, 90, 

 1880, 230, 952 and 1030) was one of the first to 

 recognize this species in chickens, but the 

 earliest scientific name given to the species 

 appears to be the completely forgotten 

 Micrococcus gallicidus given by the early 

 American bacteriologist, Burrill (Amer. 

 Naturalist, 17, 1883, 320; also see Jour. Roy. 

 Micro. Soc, London, 3, 1883, 399). The spe- 

 cific epithet given by Zopf (Die Spaltpilze, 

 3 Aufl., 1885, 57) in the binomial Micrococcus 

 choleraegallinarum has been much more 

 widely used, especially for the organism iso- 

 lated from birds. 



At about the same time, Bollinger (Micro- 

 parasiten bei eine neue Wild- und Rinder- 

 seuche, Miinchen, 1879) had found the 

 hemorrhagic septicemia organism in ani- 

 mals, and apparently the first name given 

 this organism was the trinomial Bacterium 

 bipolare multocidum Kitt (Sitz. Gesell. 

 Morphol. u. Physiol., Miinchen, 1, 1885, 24). 

 This trinomial was changed to a binomial, 

 Bacterium multocidum, by Lehmann and 

 Neumann (Bakt. Diag., 2 Aufl., 2, 1899, 196). 

 Later, as indicated above, this was changed 

 to Pasteurella nmltocidum (Rosenbusch and 

 Merchant, Jour. Bact., 37, 1939, 85). Be- 

 cause of the early use of the epithet multo- 

 cidum and because of its appropriateness, 

 it was used in the 6th edition of the Manual 

 on the recommendation of many students 

 of animal diseases, and its use is continued 

 in this edition. Meanwhile, Topley and 

 Wilson introduced the entirely new binomial 

 Pasteurella septica (Princip. Bact. and 

 Immunol., 1st ed., 1, 1931, 488), and this 

 name is currently widely used in England 

 because of its appropriateness and because 

 of the widespread use of -septica as a com- 



