BACILLUS SUBTILIS. 319 



Magnified sixty times. Superficial: Decidedly ir- 

 rly shaped colonies, rarely smooth-edged, usually 

 extraordinarily ragged and fringed. The peripheral part 

 consists of irregularly winding and interlacing threads, 

 which at times may be rolled together in an impenetrable 

 tangle. The center of the colony is yellowish, and finely 

 granular. Deep : Similar to the superficial, but denser, 

 thicker, and more opaque. The branches are still more 

 irregular and gnarled (39, vn). 



Agar Stab. — Surface growth: Moistly glistening, 

 roundish, even-bordered, soon extending to the wall of 

 the tube, a little elevated, dirty gray. Sometimes there 

 is formed a pellicle or radiating wrinkles (39, v). 

 (Compare also 34, vm.) Stab : Thread-like or granular. 



Agar Streak. — The growth upon the surface is like 

 that upon the agar stab. The water of condensation is 

 turbid, with a gray, cloudy precipitate (39, in). 



Bouillon Culture. — Uniformly cloudy. There is 

 pellicle formation upon the wall of the glass, and some- 

 times also upon the surface of the bouillon. There is a 

 little whitish precipitate. 



Potato Culture. — Dirty white to yellowish growth, 

 with an undulatory, scalloped border, somewhat elevated, 

 dull, never shining, spreading fairly widely, and upon 

 long standing it has a meal-dust appearance (40, i). 



Chemical Activities. — See remarks upon page 307. 

 Charrin and de Nittis have obtained a pathogenic Bac. 

 subtilis by cultivation upon nutrient media containing 

 blood and by passage through animals. They always 

 employed 0.6-0.75 c.c. of the most pathogenic culture to 

 produce death in guinea-pigs. The affection remained 

 local and the picture as a whole was more that of an 

 intoxication. (Compt. rend, de la Soc. de Biol., 1897, 

 713.) 



Distribution. — In hay, and widely distributed in soil. 

 Besides this, also other forms with spores are present in 

 hay, so that various kinds may be obtained by the method 

 formerly recommended for acquiring the hay bacillus 

 (inoculation of a sterile nutrient solution with a small 

 quantity of fluid containing spores obtained by boiling 

 hay for a long time). 



