INFECTIONS OF THE DIGESTIVE TRACT 199 



Professor Theobald Smith sent us an organism (anaerobe 

 xxxi) which he isolated from the stool of a patient with 

 pernicious ansemia and which proved to be much less 

 pathogenic for guinea-pigs than the typical form of B. 

 aerogenes capsulatus. This organism differed but slightly 

 from the typical bacillus in its morphology, but showed 

 the important peculiarity of being non-haemolytic. It 

 fermented the various sugars, but the gas production 

 was less abundant than in the case of the typical gas- 

 bacillus. The gas production and decomposition in- 

 duced in an incubated rabbit were also less pronounced 

 than in the case of the typical B. aerogenes capsulatus. 



A single observation was made by Mr. Ward on the 

 blood serum from a patient with pernicious anemia 

 (and capsulatus infection of the intestine) with respect 

 to a possible agglutinative action. The results were 

 entirely negative. 1 It is interesting to note in this con- 

 nection that Kamen 2 obtained no agglutinative action 

 from the serum of rabbits which had been immunized 

 with the gas-bacillus. Positive results have, however, 

 been recently obtained by Werner, 3 who employed a 

 special technical procedure in the immunization of the 

 rabbits which served as experimental animals. The 

 immune serum caused agglutination of the homolo- 

 gous gas-phlegmon bacilli (derived from a gas liver found 

 in a fatal case of wound infection) in a dilution of 1 : 1000. 



1 Professor Theobald Smith tells me that he obtained negative 

 results in agglutinative tests made with the blood of a patient 

 with pernicious anaemia who -showed large numbers of B. aerogenes 

 capsulatus in the faeces. 2 Loc. tit. 



3 " Die Agglutination bei Gasphlegmonbacillen," Archiv f. Hyg., 

 liii, p. 128, 1905. 



