XIV. 1 Mer7'ill and Wade: The Validity of Disoomyces 57 



Rivolta,(53) in 1878, changed the generic name to Discomyces. 

 After amplifying the descriptions of the granules (corpuscoli 

 discoidi) that he had made in 1868 and 1875, he said in part: 



E vero chi i corpuscoli discoidi compressi si risolvono in pennelli od in 

 ventagli fatti di rami e ramoscelli, mar percio non si ponno dire raggiati. 

 Questa parola in storia naturale ha un senso ben determinate. II com- 

 plesso dei dischi che ci rappresenta, se si voule, un micelio, non ha la 

 forma raggiata, e per consequenza non si puo denominar raggiata o come 

 venne detto actinomyces, e nemmeno si debbono indicare i danni o le lesioni 

 che produce con la parola actinomicosi. II solo nome conveniente, a mio 

 avviso, sarebbe quello di discomyces bovis, e con la parola sarcomicosi si 

 potrebbero indicare le lesioni che produce vel corpo del bue. 



Harz(28) then published a separate description of the fungus, 

 rejecting Rivolta's change. 



Israel, (29) in 1878, used Actinomyces, but called attention to 

 the similarity between the organism found in lesions in man 

 and Cohn's Streptothrix foersteri, a resemblance which, he said, 

 Cohn himself had confirmed. Perroncito, (49) although himself 

 employing Actinomyces, quoted a communication from Professor 

 Garovaglio, director of the Cryptogamic Laboratories of the 

 University of Padua, in which its previous use by Meyen(42) 

 was noted. 



Rivolta(54) later declared that he was willing to accept Actino- 

 myces bovis, but added that one could, nevertheless, form a group 

 of pathogenic discomycetes containing: (1) Actinomyces bovis 

 Harz; (2) Discomyces pleuriticus canis faTniliaris Rivolta; and 

 (3) Discomyces equi Rivolta and Micellone. The second is now 

 Cladothrix canis Rabe. (1898), and the third is known, as a 

 Micrococcus (M. botryogenes Rabe., M. ascoformans Johne, etc.). 

 The first is, therefore, the only one of these organisms remaining 

 in Rivolta's genus, as thus amplified by him, and is the type of the 

 genus, both as originally published and as later amplified. 



During this period systematists, who placed these organisms 

 among the bacteria, denied the generic validity of Cohn's St7xpto- 

 thrix. Winter, (61) Zopf, (63) Schroter,(58) and Baumgarten(5) 

 considered it to be a synonym of Cladothrix. Schroter included, 

 in the same family, the genus Actinomyces, this being apparently 

 the first recognition of Harz's organism in systematic classi- 

 fication. Baumgarten concluded that the ray fungi belonged 

 among the pleomorphic higher bacteria in the genus Cladothrix. 

 MacFadyean(39) agreed that the organisms of actinomycosis 

 probably belonged to the Schizomycetes ; he held that the oc- 

 currence of clublike elements in the granules was not of specific 

 value because inconstantly formed. 



