MICROCOCCUS INTRACELLULARIS 381 



conditions from which the organism is obtained are those 

 in which the living cultures have been injected directly 

 into the meninges. Weichselbaum produced congestion 

 with pus formation in the meninges of dogs and rabbits by 

 direct injection through openings made in the skulls; Coun- 

 cilman, Mallory, and Wright caused the death of a goat by 

 the injection into the spinal canal of 1 c.c. of a bouillon 

 suspension of a pure culture of the organism, the autopsy 

 revealing intense congestion of the meninges of both brain 

 and cord, with slight clouding of the meninges and slight 

 increase of meningeal fluid, and Flexner 1 succeeded, through 

 injections of cultures into the spinal canal of monkeys, in 

 causing death of the animals with inflammation of the men- 

 inges of the cord and brain. 



While the portal of entry for this organism to the system 

 is not definitely known, it is still of importance to note that 

 it often makes its exit from the body by way of the organs 

 that are secondarily involved and that open to without, 

 as the ear, nose, eye and lungs. 



It is of equal importance to note that the organism is of 

 very low power of resistance, being destroyed in twenty- 

 four hours by direct sunlight and by drying at body-tem- 

 perature, and in seventy-two hours by drying in the dark 

 at ordinary room-temperature. 



For the diagnosis of epidemic cerebrospinal meningitis 

 by bacteriological methods it is essential that the meningeal 

 fluid be obtained by lumbar puncture during the most 

 acute stage of the disease. 



Varieties. As in the case of the pneumococci and strepto- 

 cocci variations are observed among the meningococci. 



1 Jour. Exp. Med., 1907, ix, 168. 



