506 History of Luminescence 



in the early twentieth century by Hans Molisch (1856-1937) , pro- 

 fessor of botany at the University of Vienna. Like Ludwig, Molisch 

 studied both fungi and bacteria, and summed up knowledge of lumi- 

 nescence in the plant kingdom in his book Leuchtenden Pflanzen 

 (Jena, 1904, 1912). 



In recent times, so much experimental work has been carried out 

 with luminous bacteria that it is fortunate the organisms are not 

 pathogenic to man. Although Beal (1666) had remarked that his 

 luminous " Fish were not yet fetide, nor insipid to the best dis- 

 cerning palats," it is not certain whether he ate the mackerel being 

 prepared for pickle. On the other hand, Nicolas Lemery (Harris 

 translation 1686: 537, of Cours de Chymie, 5th ed.) , in speaking of 

 the luminous meat in the butcher shops of Orleans in 1683, did 

 make a perfectly definite statement: " there was such quantities of 

 it, some people ventur'd to eat of it, and at length it was found to 

 be as good meat as any other." 



However, the first experimental test of luminous bacteria them- 

 selves appears to have been made by P. Tollhausen in 1889. Having 

 first fed the luminous bacteria to a cat, he sprinkled his oAvn meals 

 with a bouillon culture of Bacterium phosphorescens, and ate up to 

 25 cc. of the luminous broth on three successive days without any 

 ill effects. 



Parasitic Luminous Bacteria 



Probably the first observation of infection of a living animal with 

 luminous bacteria must be ascribed to Thulis and Bernard (1786) , 

 who observed a luminous " Crevette de Riviere " (shrimp) from a 

 fresh-water stream in southern France, without knowing that the 

 light must have been due to luminous bacteria. The next instance 

 appears to be that of D. Viviani (1805) who figured luminous 

 species of what he called Gammarus from the Mediterranean near 

 Genoa. Judging from the drawings, the animals were sandfleas. 



These papers have been mostly overlooked and the discovery of a 

 luminous bacterial malady of living animals is usually attributed to 

 A. Giard (1889) and A. Giard and A. Billet (1889, 1890), who 

 demonstrated very clearly that sandfleas of the genera Talitrus and 

 Orchestia become infected and luminous, live a few days, and then 

 die. These men cultured the bacteria, which they identified as a 

 Diplobacterium, later spoken of as Bacterium giardi, and showed 

 that the infection could be transferred to other beach fleas and other 

 genera of amphipods and crabs, making them luminous. H. L. 

 Russell (1892) also inoculated the shrimp, Palaemon, with this 

 bacillus. 



