1914] Glaser—Bacterial Diseases of Cater pillars 187 
5. Bacillus megaterium. 
6. Bacillus megaterium bombycis. 
7. Bacillus mycoides. 
8. Bacillus pyocyaneus. 
9. Bacillus rubefaciens. 
10. Bacillus viridans. 
11. Various species of Proteus. 
12. Micrococcus (Staphylococcus) pyoyenes aureus. 
Our knowledge of the etiology of flacherie in silkworms has not 
advanced in the least since Pasteur’s time and the same thing 
can be said of other caterpillar diseases of a supposedly bacterial 
nature. 
Forbes in 1886 and 1888 described flacherie-like diseases in the 
caterpillars of Pieris (Pontia) rape, Datana ministra, Datana au- 
gusi, Mamestra picta, Pyrameis cardui, and Nephelodes violans. 
In 1888 he said that “all the bacterial diseases of insects thus far 
carefully studied, take first and principal effect on the epithelial 
layer of the alimentary canal, no distinctively blood disease having 
yet been distinguished if we except a supposed flacherie of Cleonus 
larvee reported by Metschnikoff in Russia, but not critically 
investigated.” 
The flacherie-ltke disease in caterpillars of the meal moth, de- 
scribed by Berliner in 1911, seems to begin with an acute intestinal 
disturbance which later affects the entire body, converting the 
interior into a brown liquid. In April, 1913, an article on Septi- 
cemia-like disease of caterpillars of Arctia caja L. appeared in the 
“Comptes Rendus des Séances de l’Académie des Sciences.” 
According to the authors Picard and Blanc, caterpillars dead 
from this disease become flaccid and give off a putrid odor. Their 
digestive tube is empty and contains a clear liquid often exempt 
from micro-organisms. ‘The blood, however, contains a pure cul- 
ture of what Picard and Blane call a coccobacillus and with which 
they have artificially reproduced the disease. This coccobacillus 
for which they propose the name Coccobacillus caje measures about 
1.5u and is slightly oval. It is motile, and Gram negative but 
takes the anilin dyes readily. Cultures in bouillon grow in twelve 
hours at temperatures ranging from 15 degrees to 35 degrees, with 
an optimum growth at 25 degrees. The cultures have an odor 
resembling putrid eggs and in 24 hours assume a greenish fluores- 
cent tint best obtained at the optimum growth temperature. The 
