128 CLASSIFICATION OF FISSION-FUNGI. 



for the tubercle bacillus. Clubbed, wedge-shaped, and 

 pointed rods frequent. Corynebacterium L. and N. 



/?. Rods stain with usual staining-solutions with diffi- 

 culty or generally not at all. Stain by the tubercle bacillus 

 method, i. e., it is acid resisting. Clubbed swelling of the 

 ends in cultures rare, in tissues somewhat more often. 

 Mycobacterium L. and N. x 



2. Mycelial threads, long, thin, extended, or winding, 

 without dividing partitions, with delicate sheaths and true 

 branches. Many species separate from the air-hyphse 

 rows of short spores (conidia), which, whitish and mold- 

 like, project upward above the solid nutrient substratum; 

 in connection with other species, conidia-formation is 

 unknown. Not stained by tubercle bacillus method. 

 Motility sometimes absent, sometimes present. Almost 

 all varieties emit a musty odor. Actinomyces Harz. 



We have determined to follow the example of Gasparini 

 and designate this genus as actinomyces. Streptothrix, 

 as these varieties, together with others, are called by 

 Kruse, is a name given by Corda in 1839 to a certain 

 mold-like organism which Cohn, because of an over- 

 sight, in 1875 introduced a second time into the literature. 

 Cladothrix, which many authors to-day call these varieties 

 (compare Giinther), is the designation for an entirely dif- 

 ferent pseudodichotomous plant (see Supplement n). In 

 the first edition we accepted, with Sauvageau and Radais, 

 the old designation of Wallroth, oospora, but since Lach- 



1 Since we proposed this name in the first edition, we have seen that 

 Metschnikoff (Virchow's Archiv, 113, p. 70, 1888), who first recognized 

 the peculiar position of the tubercle bacillus as opposed to the other 

 then known bacteria, in a work ' ' Regarding the Phagocytic Role of 

 the Tubercular Giant Cell," has said: " If one considers that in the 

 perfected stage the tubercle bacteria have grown into (although short) 

 threads, and also differ from other analogous forms (except the lepra 

 bacteria) in the possession of a very dense envelope, then perhaps it 

 will be easier to accept the designation Sclerothrix for the genus, 

 and Sclerothrix Kochii for the species of the tubercle bacterium." 

 We should have immediately accepted these names if we had known 

 of them, but believe that according to the rules of botanical nomen- 

 clature our names should now stand, since Metschnikoff only made a 

 conditional proposal, did not accurately define his new genus, and never 

 made any use of the new name himself, while we have ourselves 

 already established a name. 



