FINKLER AND PRIORI SPIRILLUM. 403 



much more quickly, and liquefaction is generally visible 

 within twenty-four hours. The liquefaction spreads rapidly, 

 and usually in forty-eight hours it has produced a funnel- 

 shaped tube with turbid contents, denser below (Fig. 96, B). 

 In plate cultures the growth of the colonies is proportion- 

 ately rapid. Before they have produced liquefaction around 

 them, they appear, unlike those of the cholera organism, as 

 minute spheres with smooth margins. When liquefaction 

 occurs, they appear as little spheres with turbid contents, 

 which rapidly increase in size. These under a low power of 

 the microscope have granular contents, and sometimes show 

 slight radiate striation at the periphery. The individual 

 colonies may reach a third of an inch in diameter, and 

 ultimately general liquefaction occurs. On potatoes this 

 organism grows well at the ordinary temperature, and in 

 two or three days has formed a slimy layer of greyish- 

 yellow colour, which rapidly spreads over the potato. On 

 all the media the growth has a distinctly foetid odour. A 

 growth in peptone solution fails to give the cholera-red 

 reaction at the end of twenty-four hours, though later a 

 faint reaction may appear. As stated above, Koch 

 succeeded in producing, by this organism, an intestinal 

 affection in guinea-pigs after neutralising the stomach 

 contents and paralysing the intestine with opium. This 

 occurs in a small proportion of the animals experimented 

 on, and the contents of the intestine, unlike what was 

 found in the case of the cholera organism, were turbid 

 in appearance, and had a markedly fcetid odour. When 

 tested by intraperitoneal injection, its effects are somewhat 

 of the same nature as those of the cholera organism, but 

 its virulence is of a much lower order. There is no 

 evidence that it has any causal relationship to cholera 

 nostras, nor to any condition of disease in man. 



An organism cultivated by Miller from the cavity of a 

 decayed tooth in a human subject is almost certainly the 

 same organism as Finkler and Prior's spirillum. 



Deneke's Spirillum. This organism was obtained from 

 old cheese, and is also known as the spirillum tyrogenum. It 



