BACTERIUM RHINOSCLEROMATIS. 229 



The organism occurs regularly in ozena (foul), but also in pure 

 atrophic rhinitis without odor. The significance of the organism in 

 the production of the ozena is therefore very questionable, just as is 

 the significance of the pseudodiphtheria bacillus, which is often simul- 

 taneously found. Jurasz and Hecht go so far as to question the sig- 

 nificance of bacteria in ozena, and speak of a trophic neurosis of the 

 nose with a putrid secretion. Compare Hecht (Munch, med. Woch- 

 enschr., 1898, No. 7, 198). 



Mice die in from one to four days after subcutaneous inoculation ; 

 rats and guinea-pigs are more difficult to infect, and rabbits are 

 immune. 



Bacterium rhinoscleromatis v. Frisch. 



Literature. Paltauf (C. B. I, 236); Bender (C. B. I, 563); Dittrich 

 (C. B. II, 89, 433) ; Babes (C. B. n, 617) ; Dittrich (C. B. v, 145) ; 

 Zagari (C. B. vi, 450). It behaves in all essential properties like the 

 Bact. pneumonise, yet many authors (Dittrich, Zagari) find it stains 

 by Gram's method, but others do not. The growth in the gelatin stab 

 shows the nail-head form, is more of a transparent gray, and not quite 

 so white as in the. Bact. pneumonise. Further differences can not be 

 found even by the vigorous advocates of a difference between the Bact. 

 rhinoscleromatis and Bact. pneumonia?. According to Paltauf, milk 

 is coagulated ; according to Abel, it is not. It is found in all cases of 

 typical rhinoscleroma (infrequent, hard, round-celled tumors of the 

 nose, partly subcutaneous, partly submucous ; more rarely in throat 

 and larynx) and claimed to be the cause of the same. In animal and 

 human experiments a reproduction of rhinoscleroma has never suc- 

 ceeded. De Simoni doubted that the organism is different from the 

 above members of the group of Bact. pneumonise, and, above all, that 

 it is the cause of rhinoscleroma (C. B. xxv, 625). The constancy of 

 the occurrence of the organism in all cases of rhinoscleroma examined 

 bacteriologically remains as an incontestable, significant fact. Dittrich 

 found the organism generally to be scarcely at all pathogenic ; others 

 observed mice to be about as susceptible to it as to the Bact. pneu- 

 monise, and guinea-pigs less so. 



Critical Remarks Regarding Bact. acidi lactici, aero= 

 genes, pneumonias, rhinoscleromatis, and ozasna?. 



These varieties are, as appears from the description, at 

 least closely related, and only to be differentiated by 

 biologic characteristics which are known to be variable. 

 Besides, Denys and Martin (La Cellule, ix, 1893, p. 261; 

 C. B. xvi, 127), by repeated cultivation of pure cultures 

 in milk, have brought the Bact. pneumonise, from three 

 different sources, to a condition where it coagulates milk 

 with the greatest energy, and also produces gas from milk- 

 sugar. Inversely, after being grown for eleven months 

 upon" gelatin the power of breaking up grape- and milk- 



