MICROSPIRA METCHNIKOVL 501 



MICROSPIRA METCHNIKOVI (GAMALEIA), MIGULA, 

 1900. 



Synonym : Vibrio Metchnikovi, Gamaleia, 1888. 



A spirillum that simulates very closely the comma 

 bacillus of cholera in its morphological and cultural 

 peculiarities, but which is still easily distinguished from 

 it, is that described by Gamaleia l under the name of 



FIG. 78. 



Microspira Metchnikovi from agar-agar culture, twenty-four hours' old. 



microspira Metchnikovi. It was found post mortem in a 

 number of fowls that had died in the poultry-market of 

 Odessa, and the experiments of the discoverer led him 

 to believe that it was related etiologically to the gastro- 

 enteritis from which the chickens had been suffering. 



Morphologically it appears as short, curved rods and as 

 longer, spiral-like filaments. It is usually thicker than 

 Koch's spirillum and is at times much longer, while 

 again it is seen to be shorter. It is usually more dis- 

 tinctly curved than the " comma bacillus." (Fig. 78.) 



It is supplied with a single flagellum at one of its 

 extremities, and is therefore motile. 



It does not form spores. 



It is aerobic. 



Its growth upon gelatin plates is usually character- 



1 Annales de 1'Institut Pasteur, 1888, tome ii., pp. 482, 552. 



