BACTERIOLOGY OF THE OYSTER. 29 



an important matter, for the temperature of the water will influence 

 the metabohsm of the mucus secreting cells and will determine the 

 amount of mucus present on the body of the oyster. This matter will 

 be discussed further in another connection. 



When the writer began his experiments, he did not know of Hous- 

 ton's work and so the experiments were not carried out in exactly 

 the same manner, but, nevertheless, the experiments throw consider- 

 able light on the work just cited. The idea that the mucus of the 

 oyster played a part as yet unappreciated led the writer to perform 

 the following series of experiments. 



Experiment I. 



September 29, 1913, ten oysters were t'aken to the laboratory and 

 analyzed as follows: The oysters were opened according to 

 "Standard Methods" and the hquor drained into a small bottle 

 graduated in two cubic centimeter divisions. The oysters were 

 allowed to drain until a drop would not come away at least every five 

 seconds. The amount of liquor was then read off and an equal 

 volume of sterile salt solution added and the whole shaken vigorously 

 one hundred times. The body of the oyster was removed from the 

 shell and placed in a sterile jar and a quantity of sterile salt solution 

 added equal to the volume of the shell liquor. The jars were covered 

 and allowed to stand for a short time while the oyster juice was being 

 inoculated into plates and bile tubes. The jars containing salt 

 solution and oyster meat were then stirred vigorously with a sterile 

 pipette and an attempt made to remove with the pipette as much 

 mucus as possible from the body of the oyster. Then one cubic 

 centimeter of the solution and dilutions thereof were inoculated into 

 plain agar plates and lactose-peptone-bile in the same manner as in 

 the case of oyster juice. A careful record was kept of the number of 

 cubic centimeters of juice obtained from each oyster and the amount 

 of salt solution used in washing each oyster in order to make a com- 

 parison of the bacterial content of all the shell liquor with the total 

 number of bacteria washed from the oyster. This would show which 

 part contained the greater number of bacteria. 



Experiment IL 



The above experiment was repeated on oysters obtained October 7, 

 1913. The total number of bacteria found in the shell liquor and the 



