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organisms isolated from rancid butter Otdium lactis, Cladosporium 
butyri, Penicillium glaucum and Streptotri alba proved vigorously 
to split fats, whilst B. fluorescens liquefaciens, B. prodigiosum and 
B. mesentericus vulgatus belong to the feebler splitters. According to 
Jensen part of the fat in cheese is also splitted, especially at the outside. 
The researches of Laxa’) with pure cultures of fat-splitting organisms 
inoculated into sterilised casein, made of unskimmed milk, showed 
that B. fluorescens liquefuciens, Oidium lactis, Penicillium glaucum 
and a Mucor species split butter. 
König, SPIECKERMANN and Bremer’) published researches on the 
decrease of fat percentage in cattle-cake by microbic action. According 
to them this percentage may be reduced from 10°/,—12"/, to afew 
per cents within the time of a year. 
Huss *) isolated from milk a Bacterium lipolyticum which in milk 
and butter causes a rancid, bitter taste. The description of this 
bacterium we briefly give as follows. 
Bacterium lipolyticum is a coceus-shaped, 0.8—0.5 u wide, and 
0.7—1.4 w long motile rod; liquefies gelatin slowly without film 
formation, coagulates milk at 20° C. in three days, then dissolves 
the casein; the culture is then dirty yellow, has a putrid smell and 
reacts alkaline. Indol is produced in slight quantity ; methylene blue 
is reduced, nitrate is reduced to nitrite, lipase is secreted. Acid 
production occurs from elyeerin, mannite, dextrose, saccharose, raffi- 
nose and xylose, not from lactose. 
From a sample of quickly creaming milk Worrr *) isolated a 
bacterium, the cause of this phenomenon. The shape of this microbe 
is like that of B. lactis acidi: size of the cells 0.6—0.8 u xX 1—1.5 u. 
Slightly motile. On gelatin this bacterium grows out to small colonies 
having the form of a flower-head of Bellis perennis. Gelatin and 
casein are not liquefied. In milk this microbe grows well and forms 
a film; the reaction of the liquid is alkaline and it smells like soap. 
Besides in the dairy industry, researches on fat-splitting in the soil 
have been made. In 1900 Rusnerr *) published a treatise on this subject 
in which the splitting and assimilation of fat by microbes in the soil 
is stated. This experimenter found that in a year + 50°/, of the fat 
added to the soil was split and + 15°/, assimilated. A vigorous 
splitting of the additional fat also occurs in culture liquids, especially 
1) Archiv. f. Hyg. Bd. 41 1902. 
2) Zeitschr. f, Unters. der Nahrungs- und Genussmittel 1901 Heft 16 S. 720. 
8) Centralblatt f. Bakt. 2 Abt. 1908 Bd. 20 S. 474. 
4) Milchwirtsch. Zentralbl. 1909 p. 500. 
6) Arch. f. Hyg. 1900 Bd. 38 S. 67. 
