MYCOBACTERIUM SMEGMATIS. 427 



dyes, and also well by Gram's method, and often (not 

 always) by Lustgarten's, but not by Ziel-Neelsen's 

 method. The statements regarding spores sound improb- 

 able. 



It grows slowly upon all ordinary nutrient media as a 

 whitish to yellowish or brownish formation, and it grows 

 very slowly upon gelatin. In the gelatin stab there are 

 very fine points and teeth, and often branches are pre- 

 sented. 



All gelatin plates present pinhead- shaped, prominent, 

 yellowish- white, glistening, transparent colonies. Upon 

 agar the growth possesses a slimy tenacity. Upon serum 

 the organism thrives, although the growth is not much more 

 abundant. The color is often quite a pronounced yellow. 



In bouillon (at 37) there is first turbidity; later a sedi- 

 ment; also a delicate, cobweb-like pellicle and a ring on 

 the wall of the tube (optimum, 28-32). 



The animal experiments are given so absolutely super- 

 ficially that they are referred to with great difficulty. The 

 organism (only one culture appears to have been em- 

 ployed) proved pathogenic for monkeys and swine. The 

 three monkeys succumbed after a few weeks with a very 

 complicated clinical picture, in which there appeared ulcer- 

 ations at the point of inoculation, most extensive cuta- 

 neous eruption, nervous and cerebral disturbances, and 

 indolent swelling of the glands. 



At the autopsies there were found, in the first animal, 

 ischemic alterations in the brain (areas of softening); in 

 the second, leptomeningitis and endocarditis; in the third, 

 haematocephalus interims. Of other disturbances there 

 were, especially, multiple swellings of lymph-glands. 



Microscopically, periarterial processes like those in syph- 

 ilis appear, but the examinations are insufficiently pene- 

 trating throughout. The pathogenic organism was never 

 successfully isolated again from one of the inoculated 

 animals, and none of the animals was completely studied 

 bacteriologically; in short, scarcely anything can be con- 

 cluded from the animal experiments. 



Van Niessen finally attaches value to the demonstration 

 of an agglutination of his organism by serum from syph- 

 ilitic patients. 



