LESSONS AND LABORATORY EXERCISES 

 IN BACTERIOLOGY. 



LESSON I. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Plan of Work. The student should understand that the following pages are in- 

 tended to be supplementary to the general lecture instruction in bacteriology, and do 

 not in any sense replace such instruction. Nor is the work comparable to a text-book 

 upon the subject, being entirely too schematic and incomplete for use as such. It is 

 intended rather that the instruction outlined in the following pages shall serve as a guide 

 for those personal exercises and experiments which shall establish the verity of the major 

 propositions of the systematic teachings ; and shall also afford some scheme in outline 

 for personal investigation into such problems in the subject as may be undertaken by 

 the student in his laboratory experience. The pages are interleaved with blank sheets in 

 order that upon the latter may be noted the results of each experiment ; and in addition 

 it is advised that these blanks be employed for the preservation of notes of all detailed 

 instruction not included in the printed page, at least as far as technique is concerned. 

 For the general discussions of bacteriology, the relations of the schizomycetes to allied 

 forms of vegetation, their relations to disease phenomena, and the many and varied 

 problems which arise in the subject generally, little or nothing may be included in a 

 book of the scope and limitations set upon this, and reference in such lines should at once 

 be made to the systematic texts upon the subject. 



It is the purpose of the following lessons to conduct the student in some regular 

 progression through those processes and modes of operation by which bacteria may be 

 studied for the recognition of the individual organism and its classification in the group 

 of the cleft fungi. The systematic and complete study of this or that form is not sought, 

 save in a minor degree, since there must in the present crowded condition of the medical 

 curriculum be little possibility to hope for more than a second-hand knowledge at the 

 hands of the student of the great bulk of facts accumulated by bacteriologists in regard 

 to individual forms of bacteria, whether pathogenic or non-pathogenic ; but it is hoped 

 that the student who has followed with punctual and earnest labor the processes herein 

 outlined will be able, by some such analytic key as is presented, to undertake with intel- 

 ligence and expectation of success the determination of such bacteriologic growths as he 

 may encounter in his later and fuller studies. In other words, one who has pursued 

 faithfully such work, although he may not be regarded as a bacteriologist, should be in 

 position, by practice and further study along the same and allied lines, to become com- 

 petent as such. As a matter of practice it is intended that at least a few of the more 

 important pathogenic bacteria and such unknown organisms as may be met in material 

 suggested for investigation by the instructor should be carried through the outlined 

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