206 IMPORTANT VARIETIES OF FISSION-FUNGI. 



Spores are absent. 



Serum-agar Plate. Young colonies exceedingly deli- 

 cate, like dewdrops ; single colonies may be as large as 

 2 mm., grayish, somewhat lobulated. Rarely are they 

 elevated like a pinhead. ' Magnified from sixty to a hun- 

 dred times they are finely granular. 



Agar Plate. Smaller, poorer, and usually drier than 

 upon serum. On the contrary, Vincenzi observed better 

 growth on agar than on serum. He describes, in the 

 agar stab, faint growth in the stab canal and no surface 

 growth. 



Bouillon Culture. Scanty growth, little turbidity. 



Milk and potato growths are so far unknown. 



Resistance to drying is minimal. 



Distribution. According to the authors previously 

 mentioned, the organism is regularly present in the glairy, 

 transparent sputum of typical cases of whooping-cough, 

 and from it it has often been cultivated. We have also 

 made, with Dr. Hirai, a series of successful cultures. We 

 always found the cultures to remain alive for an extraordi- 

 narily short time. 



Animal experiments have failed with all animals and 

 in the hands of all investigators. 



Special Cultures and Methods of Recognition. 

 The sputum is obtained with as little contamination as 

 possible (when possible, after washing out the mouth), 

 and typical, .glairy, tenacious balls are allowed to stand 

 in abundant sterile water about one hour. The water is 

 then poured off, and the clumps washed in several changes 

 of distilled water, and finally from them smears on cover- 

 glasses and streak cultures upon ascites-agar are prepared. 



Bacterium duplex (L. and N.). 



Ordinary Name. Diplobacillus Morax. 



Literature. Morax (A. P. X, 337); Axenfeld (C. B. XXI, 1), with 

 plate. 



Microscopic. Rather large, plump rods, often arranged 

 in pairs or short chains, about 1 //. thick and 2 to 3 A* long, 

 non-motile, not stained by Gram's method, without any 

 capsule of importance. 



