XIV, 1 Merrill and Wade: The Validity of Discomyces 67 



is no longer the property of its originator to withdraw or modify 

 at will. 



Finally, to argue, as do Chalmers and Christopherson, that 

 Discomycetacese, a group name, invalidates Discomyces as a 

 generic name in the connection in which Rivolta used it, on 

 the ground that the type genus of Fries's Discomycetacese, 

 published in 1836, should bear the designation Discomyces, in- 

 dicates an erroneous conception of the principles of nomencla- 

 ture and priority in technical names; a family name such as 

 Discomycetacese cannot invalidate the generic name Discomyces 

 any more than a generic name can invalidate a similar specific 

 name. This generic name was new with Rivolta, and there is 

 no valid objection to its adoption in taxonomy. 



Nocardia is no longer to be considered. Both it and Actino- 

 cladothrix of Affanassiew and Schultz, the publication of which 

 seems to have been completely ignored, were proposed eleven 

 years later and fall as synonyms of Discomyces Rivolta (1878), 

 which genus is typified by Discomyces bovis (Harz) Rivolta. 



The question of division of the group is a different matter. 

 It is our conception that the group, exhibiting as it does wide 

 differences among the species, should be subdivided. However, 

 neither the characters upon which separation was advocated by 

 earlier writers (granule formation in tissues, club-ended fila- 

 ments in the granules), nor those advanced by Pinoy (difficulty 

 of cultivation, anaerobiosis, absence of arthrospores) , seem to 

 be convincing for generic distinction. Granules may be formed 

 in animal lesions by a variety of these organisms, and club 

 formation is a variable feature even in typical actinomycosis. 

 Anaerobiosis and difficulty of cultivation are not generically dis- 

 tinctive botanically, nor so considered for other groups of mi- 

 croorganisms from the bacteriological viewpoint. Furthermore, 

 these features characterize both the strains described by Israel 

 and those studied by Wright. Should it appear desirable to di- 

 vide the genus, this will probably be done on the basis of mor- 

 phologic rather than metabolic differences. 



REFERENCES 



(1) Affanassiew. St. Petersb. med. Wochenschr. (1888), 13, 76 and 83. 



Cited by Blanchard (1910). 



(2) Affanassiew and Schultz. Third Congress of Russian Physicians, 



St. Petersburg, Subsection for Bacteriology. Ref. : Centralbl. f. 

 Bakt., etc., 1. Abt. (1889), 5, 683; also Baumgarten's Jahresber. 

 (1889), 5, 398. 



(3) Almquist, E. Zeitachr. f. Hyg. (1890), 8, 189. 



