BACILLUS AEROBICUS SEPIS 579 



A* 



chains. It forms spores. The bacillus stains with the basic aniline dyes and is 

 gram-positive. 



Though principally aerobic it can nevertheless grow under anaerobic conditions : 

 the temperature of growth lies between 18 and 

 43 C. 



Broth cultures give off a most offensive butyric 

 odour. 



Gelatin is rapidly liquefied. The bacillus grows f &P- I "iT 

 exceedingly well on agar and potato. It does not f\ f^Jt. 



produce indol, and coagulates milk in fine granular . \A 



flakes without altering the reaction of the medium. ! %L 



It slowly liquefies coagulated serum. 



Inoculated sub-cutaneously into guinea-pigs it pro- JF N IB* 



duces sometimes a gaseous gangrene with a sub- 

 normal temperature which terminates fatally (adult t %? 

 animals), at other times a septicaemia without local \| 

 lesions (young animals and pregnant does). The 



virulence of the organism is maintained with dim"- FlG 273 _ Bacillus aerobicus sepis. 

 culty : it can be increased by inoculating a little (After Legros.) 



lactic acid with the culture. 



The experiments of Rosenthal have shown that it is easy to modify the conditions 

 of the growth of the bacillus and to vary the capacity of one and the same strain 

 for living in oxygen- containing media or in those from which air is removed. It 

 is unnecessary perhaps to point out that it is under anaerobic conditions that the 

 bacillus sets up the lesions of gaseous gangrene. 



