40 BACTEKIOLOGY OF THE EYE 



a packet form of Micrococcus tetragenus, 1 and called it Sarcina tetra- 

 gena. This name has since been confirmed and adopted by Lehmann 

 and Neumann. The relationship between the Sarcince and the Micrococci 

 is still further pursued by Stubenrath and Lehmann and Neumann, 

 who speak of a ' sarcina-form ' of their Micrococcus lutcus an&flavus. 

 From the Micrococcus roseus, too, they developed a Sarcina rosea? 



Sarcince are generally distinguished by their slow growing, very 

 prominent and deeply-coloured colonies especially well seen on agar 

 or potato. Gram-staining in general is positive, but there are Gram- 

 negative Sarcince. I have myself grown one from the conjunctiva, and 

 in the secretion preparation it took the form of large Gram-negative 

 Diplococci rolled up in balls, surrounded by a clear envelope like a 

 capsule (cf. Plate II., Fig. 3). 



Gasparrini (1895) was the first to positively assert the presence of 

 Pneumoeocei on the normal conjunctiva. He stated that he had 

 found them in a virulent form on 80 per cent, of normal conjunctivas, 

 thus proving that this membrane resembled the buccal cavity in 

 generally containing Pneumoeocei. In collaboration with Oertzen, I 

 have proved in a large series of cases, on the contrary, that the Pneu- 

 mococcus is not so common in the conjunctiva as is the Xerosis, or as 

 the 80 per cent, of Gasparrini would show. It was necessary to settle 

 this question by a long series of examinations, for Gasparrini's state- 

 ment had entirely altered our views of the danger of infection. The older 

 records in the literature referring to this problem could not be relied 

 upon, as Gasparrini had used an entirely new method namely, the 

 direct introduction into the tissues, of the conjunctival secretion on 

 sterilized swabs. We did not obtain a pneumococcal infection in a 

 single instance when using Gasparrini's method, and therefore con- 

 cluded that some mistake had occurred in his experiments. We, on 

 the contrary, using very susceptible glycerine agar, only found Pneu 

 mococci twice in forty-nine eyes. The Pneumococcus can be found 

 here and there on the normal conjunctiva. Lawson carefully examined 

 200 cases with blood-serum, and found it only twice. 



Rymovicz (loc. cit.) found it in 9 per cent, of his cases, Heinersdorff 

 in 5 per cent. Seeing that the presence of Pneumoeocei, in the small 

 numbers in which they occur, is rather difficult to demonstrate, it is 

 not impossible that they really occur somewhat more frequently. I 

 incline to this view because of the fact that Pneumoeocei occur so very 



1 This organism has been found on the conjunctiva by Dudzinski, Gromakowski, and 

 myself. It occurs rarely in that situation. 



2 A Staph. pyog. aurcus approximating to a Sarcina has recently been examined in my 

 1 aboratory by Tschirkowski (K. M. f. A., 1908, i.). 



