48 BACTERIOLOGY 



3. THE NOMENCLATURE OF SPECIES 



A matter requiring more careful attention is the nomenclature 

 of species. Little or no regard has, in many instances, been 

 paid to the most ordinary rules of botanical nomenclature. The 

 common rule is to express a species as a binomial, and yet in 

 bacteriologic nomenclature we find almost as many trinomials as 

 binomials; and quadrinomials are not infrequent. The Pneu- 

 mococcus, Frankel's bacillus, Diplococcus pneumonia, and Micro- 

 coccus lanceolatus are used indiscriminately, and many think it 

 makes little difference what the organism is called, provided it is 

 understood what is meant. There are certain rules governing 

 the naming of species, and these should be observed. Each 

 bacillus should be given its proper name, as determined by 

 these rules, and it should become the practice to use such names 

 only, and not one of its various synonyms indiscriminately. The 

 rules of bacteriologic nomenclature should be those of the Paris 

 code of 1867, together with those of the Botanical Club of the 

 American Association for the Advancement of Science, adopted 

 at the recent Rochester and Madison meetings. The writer has 

 endeavored to apply these rules to all of the better-known 

 species of bacteria. This has involved a careful study of the 

 synonymy of each species, a rather laborious task, but the ful- 

 filment of which, we trust, will result in placing bacteriologic 

 nomenclature on a better basis. The rule of priority must be 

 the guiding one in the naming of species, and custom or prefer- 

 ence must yield to this inexorable law. Article 59 of the Paris 

 code reads, " Nobody is authorized to change a name because it 

 is badly chosen or disagreeable, or another is preferable or bet- 

 ter known, or for any other motive, either contestable or of little 

 import." This will require us to apply some new names to a 

 number of familiar species. Thus Koch's bacillus of mouse sep- 

 ticaemia becomes Bacterium insidiosum (Trevisan) Migula. The 

 reason for this is seen in the following synonymy of the species : 



