272 PATHOGENIC BACTERIA. 



time than is required by the staphylococcus. They did 

 not succeed in producing mumps in animals. In their 

 experience a dog was encountered which suffered from 

 swelling of the parotids, malaise, etc., after playing with 

 a child suffering from mumps. 



Concerning the diplococctis, it appeared in twos and fours ; 

 rarely in larger groups. Each was regularly rounded and 

 about the size of the pus cocci. The colonies are small, 

 white, glistening, distinctly defined, regularly circular 

 spots, at first discrete and of slow growth, gradually coa- 

 lescing. The slow growth is characteristic. In study- 

 ing pure cultures, some gelatin tubes three days after in- 

 oculation were set aside, no growth being noted; three 

 days later the small white colonies became distinctly vis- 

 ible. At ordinary temperatures gelatin is not liquefied 

 until ten or twelve days, and the liquefaction proceeds 

 slowly. A faint white streak appears on potato on the 

 third day, and spreads as a delicate whitish film. The 

 growth upon blood-serum is more rapid than on other 

 media, but the colony is not so distinctly white in color. 

 Litmus milk is changed to pink on the third day and is 

 coagulated. Milk is thought to be an excellent nutrient 

 medium, and a possible ready means of spreading con- 

 tagion. 



In the paper of Mecray and Walsh no mention is made 

 of the relation of the cocci to pus cells or other organized 

 constituents of the secretion from which they were 

 obtained; no animal inoculations were done and nothing 

 is said about the reaction to Gram's method of staining 

 or possible motility the cocci might possess. 



Michaelis and Bein, 1 of Leyden's clinic, found a diplo- 

 coccus (previously observed by Leyden in the sputum), 

 which occurred chiefly in the pus cells. In severe cases 

 of the disease, which they studied by culture and micro- 

 scopic section, the organism was not only secured from 

 Stensen's duct, but in 2 cases from the pus of an abscess 

 (parotid ?) and in 1 case from the blood. 



1 Deutsche med. Wochenschrift, May 13, 1897. 



