BACTERIA IN RELATION TO PLANT DISEASES. 



Lehmann & Neumann have suggested Mycobacterium, and we may use this name 

 without in any way committing ourselves as to the significance of the branching 

 forms. I would include also under it Bacillus diphtheria Loeffler (Corynebac- 

 terium L. & N.). The writer has not inquired critically as to whether this is the 

 earliest available name for this group, but that of Sclerothrix, given by Metchnikoff 

 in 1888, is twice preoccupied, and that of Cocothrix, given by Lutz in 1886, is too 

 near the earlier Cocothrichium Link. In 1889, in Saccardo's Sylloge Fungorum, 

 De-Toni and Trevisan included these organisms under the genus Pacinia Trevisan, 

 but Trevisan's original draft of this genus included only vibrios, his type being 

 the organism causing Asiatic cholera. 



Another difficulty is to decide what name shall be used for the cause of Asiatic 

 cholera and its relatives. The majority, perhaps, of pathologists and bacteriologists 

 use the genus name Vibrio. They understand by it small spirally bent organisms 

 common in water and possessed of one polar flagellum or rarely of several such 

 organs, the Vibrio cholera being taken as the type. Others call most of these 

 organisms Vibrio, but speak of Spirillum cholera. Others use the two names 

 Vibrio and Spirillum interchangeably. Others try to escape the difficulty by 

 avoiding Latin names altogether, speaking in the same article indifferently of "the 

 cholera vibrio," "the cholera bacterium," and "the cholera bacillus." This is the 

 case frequently in the recent big monograph by Kolle & Wassermann. A few per- 

 sons, following Migula, have used Schroeter's name, Microspira, given in 1886. 

 Microspira is inadmissible, according to strict rules of priority, because Trevisan's 

 name Pacinia is one year earlier (1885). Trevisan's genus, although badly defined, 

 following Zopf 's ideas of pleomorphism, is tied hard and fast to the cholera organ- 

 ism. Apparently this name was given without any personal acquaintance with the 

 organism named, but according to current rules of nomenclature this makes no differ- 

 ence. The choice, therefore, is between Pacinia and Vibrio, the one tied fast to a 

 known species, but not used by working pathologists or bacteriologists since it 

 was coined, so far as my reading goes, the other in common use, but a floating 

 name that is, one which can not be used for bacteria, and at the same time tied 

 to any definite species or group of species included in the original draft of the genus. 



Miiller's genus Vibrio was published in 1773 in his "Vermium terrestrium 

 et fluviatilium." It contained 15 species bacteria, eel-worms, etc. Other things 

 were also afterward put into it by Miiller, e.g., diatoms. We will be content with 

 the first draft of the genus. It is described as follows : " Vibrio. Most simple, 

 inconspicuous, terete, elongate worms." The first species is described as follows: 

 Vibrio lineola. 



Vibrio linear, hard to see. Danish, Strseg-strsekkeren. A most minute animal, 

 almost exceeding in smallness Manas termo and 30 times less than Vibrio bacillus and 

 entirely different. A trembling motion of myriads of oblong and obscure points is 

 seen in a single drop, or with the highest magnification undulatory movements. In 

 infusions of vegetables it almost fills the substance of the water after many days. 



The second species, V. bacillus, first obtained from hay infusions, is described 

 at a little greater length, but not any better. The third species is a mixture of 

 nematodes. The first two species are bacteria. One other species of schizomycete 

 is described, viz, Vibrio undula. This last, or what was supposed to be it, together 



