284 PATHOGENIC BACTERIA, 



Buchner has shown that in media containing some 

 glucose an acid reaction is produced. 



The spirillum does not grow well, if at all, in milk, 

 and speedily dies in water. 



The organism does not produce indol. 



The spirillum can be stained well by the ordinary 

 dyes, and seems, like the cholera spirillum, to have a 

 special affinity for the aqueous solution of fnchsin. 



In connection with this bacillus the question of patho- 

 genesis is a very important one. At first it was sus- 

 pected that it was, if not the spirillum of cholera itself, 

 a very closely allied organism. Later it was regarded 

 as the cause of cholera nostras. At present its exact 

 pathological significance is a question. It was in one 

 case secured by Knisl from the feces of a suicide, and 

 has been found in carious teeth by Miiller. 



When injected into the stomach of guinea-pigs treated 

 according the method of Koch, about 30 per cent, of the 

 animals die, but the intestinal lesions produced are not 

 the same as those produced by the cholera spirillum. 

 The intestines in such cases are pale and filled with 

 watery material having a strong putrefactive odor. This 

 fluid teems with the spirilla. 



It seems very unlikely, from the collected evidence, 

 that the Finkler and Prior spirillum is associated with 

 pathogenesis in the human species. As Frankel points 

 out, it is probably a frequent and harmless inhabitant of 

 the human intestine. 



The Spirillum of Denecke. Another organism with 

 a distinct resemblance to the cholera spirillum is one 

 described by Denecke as occurring in old cheese (Fig. 

 84). Its form is much the same as that of the spirillum 

 of cholera, the shorter individuals being of equal diameter 

 throughout. The spirals which are produced are longer 

 than those of the Finkler and Prior spirillum, and are 

 more tightly coiled than those of the cholera spirillum. 



L,ike its related species, this micro-organism is actively 

 motile. It grows at the room-temperature, as well as at 



