MICROCOCCUS INTRACELLULARIS 377 



gelatin, agar-agar, bouillon, or potato; should it grow under 

 these circumstances its development will be very feeble. (Is 

 this -the case with common pus-producers?) 



Sixth, it has no pathogenic properties for animals, while 

 several of the pyogenic cocci, notably micrococcus aureus 

 and streptococcus pyogenes, are usually capable of exciting 

 pathological conditions. (This is less commonly true of 

 streptococcus pyogenes than of micrococcus aureus.) 



Seventh, it has the power of fixing complement, and this 

 method of identification is of particular service in all medico- 

 legal cases as well as in other obscure cases not readily 

 diagnosed by the microscopic and cultural methods. 1 



MICROCOCCUS INTRACELLULARIS (WEICHSELBAUM), 

 MIGULA, 1900. 



SYNONYMS: Diplococcus Intracellularis Meningitidis, Weichselbaum, 

 1887; Streptococcus Intracellularis (Weichselbaum), Lehmann and Neu- 

 mann, 1896. 



Of the several organisms mentioned that might be mis- 

 taken for the gonococcus, no one of them is as important 

 as that concerned in the causation of epidemic cerebrospinal 

 meningitis. 



This organism, described by Weichselbaum in 1887 under 

 the name "diplococcus Intracellularis meningitidis," was 

 found by him in the exudations of the brain and spinal 

 cord in six cases of acute cerebrospinal meningitis. 



As its name implies, it is a diplococcus, practically always 

 seen within the bodies of pus-cells (polymorphonuclear 

 leukocytes) in the exudations characteristic of this disease. 

 It is not seen within the other cells of the morbid process. 



1 See "Compliment-fixation;" also Schwartz and McNiel, Am. Jour. 

 Mod. Sc., cxliv, p. 815. 



