184 INFECTIONS OF THE DIGESTIVE TRACT 



to cultivate any colon bacilli, the gelatin plates indicated 

 the presence of very large numbers of an organism cor- 

 responding closely to that described by Ford * as B. 

 entericus. This organism liquefies gelatin with great 

 rapidity. 



Lubenau 2 has lately described a spore-bearing Gram- 

 positive aerobic organism which liquefies gelatin and 

 which he looks upon as the cause of an outbreak of severe 

 diarrhosa among the inmates of an institution. This 

 outbreak was characterized by persistent vomiting, great 

 prostration, severe headache, and frequently by mental 

 confusion. The diarrhoeal seizures were in some in- 

 stances as frequent as twenty or more in twenty-four 

 hours and were attended by great abdominal pain. The 

 general condition of the patients improved rapidly, but 

 the vomiting and diarrhrea lasted for two or three days. 

 The temperature was only slightly elevated and even 

 this slight rise was observed only in a small number of 

 the cases. 



The organism described by Lubenau as the cause of 

 this outbreak resembled the common hay bacillus in 

 morphology. It was an actively motile aerobe which 

 formed no gas on sugar-agar and attacked milk slowly, 

 producing alkali and peptone. It sporulated readily 

 and in its sporulating stage was non-pathogenic 

 for animals. When obtained hi large numbers in its 

 vegetative form, through growth upon milk to which 



1 Loc. tit., p. 40. 



2 " Bacillus peptonificans als Erreger einer Gastroenteritis 

 Epidemic," Centralbl. f. Bakt., etc., I Abt., Orig., xl, p. 433, 

 1905-06. 



