92 AIDS TO BACTERIOLOGY 



describes cases of metastatic ocular inflammation as 

 associated with B. coli toxaemia. It is generally the 

 causal agent of calf diarrhoea (Bibby's ' Bovine Tuber- 

 culosis,' p. 434). It is possible that B. coli may be re- 

 sponsible for some outbreaks of bacterial food poisoning. 

 Gordon R. Ward thinks a variant of B. coli produces 

 pernicious anoemia. 



Bacilli coli as pathogenic organisms are supposed not 

 to be identical with, but relations of the original B. coli ; 

 to use Metchnikoff s phrase, they are ' wild races.' Some 

 bacteriologists drop the term B. coli when speaking of 

 an infective organism of the species and speak of it as a 

 coliform organism. 



Vaccines. Antisera have not proved of value. Cystitis 

 and other affections of a chronic nature are successfully 

 treated with autogenous vaccines. Greater improvement 

 takes place when the vaccine is freshly prepared every 

 month. 



By cultural characters alone, over a hundred types of 

 B. coli have been described. As organisms culturally 

 identical give widely different agglutination reactions it 

 is quite evident that more types still undescribed exist. 

 Even allowing for many types that are incapable of pro- 

 ducing disease there must remain an enormous number 

 of potentially pathogenic colon bacilli. In coli infections 

 it remains largely a matter of chance whether a stock 

 polyvalent vaccine will be antagonistic to an individual 

 pathogenic type. 



Coli-like Organisms. 



In addition to the atypical B. coli mentioned, other 

 organisms have been regarded as variants of the colon 

 bacillus. Some of these are mentioned among the capsu- 

 lated bacilli (vide infra). 



B. neapolitanus, isolated by Emmerich from the dejecta 

 of cases of cholera, ferments saccharose and dulcite, and 

 produces indole, but is non-motile. 



B. cloacce, a motile organism, liquefies gelatin quickly 

 or slowly, ferments saccharose but not dulcitol, and gives 

 the Voges-Proskauer reaction. It occurs in sewage, grave- 

 yards, and slaughter-house drains. 



B. bifidus and B. acidophilus are coli-like, but Gram- 

 positive organisms, which occur in the large intestine of 



