CHICKENS COLD-STORED UNDER KNOWN CONDITIONS. 



55 



ever, so widely distributed are these organisms, and so many chances 

 would they have of coming in contact with the flesh of the chicken, 

 that it would be difficult to assert that their presence there is due to 

 migration from the intestine of the drawn fowl or to pollution by its 

 contents in the process of drawing. 



The pronounced increase in the number of species isolated in the 

 course of the work here reported would indicate one of two things 

 either that there has been a very decided increase in the number of 

 the organisms originally present in the flesh, enabling the methods, 

 which at the beginning of the experiment were inadequate for their 

 isolation, to meet the conditions present later on; or that the addi- 

 tional species have, in "the course of the period of storage, gained 

 access to the flesh. 



It must be remembered that these chickens were prepared, placed 

 in storage, and treated at every step of the way with a care which is 

 not exercised under practical market conditions. With such pre- 

 cautions as have been taken it would seem scarcely possible that so 

 extensive an invasion as represented by the increase in species found 

 in the later stages of storage could have taken place in the warehouse. 

 It seems probable, though further work is demanded on the subject, 

 that there has been an increase in the number of the organisms in 

 the flesh of the chickens even though the temperature at which they 

 had been kept is far below the freezing point. 



It has also been noted, in the course of this investigation, that the 

 organisms developing after long periods of cold storage are difficult 

 to classify. It is altogether probable that the low temperatures at 

 which they have been kept for months is, in a measure, responsible 

 for their variation in growth when sown upon the usual culture media. 

 It has been quite impossible to attach a definite name to each organ- 

 ism since there are slight differences between individual colonies whicn 

 are, however, insufficient to throw them into different groups; and 

 they differ also from the descriptions of the organisms commonly 

 given in the literature devoted to systematic bacteriology. 



Bacteriological examination of fresh and cold-storage, chickens. 

 FRESH CHICKENS. 



Species isolated. 



A micrococcus, a rod form. 



