THE GONOCOCCUS 299 



less numerous, and in the chronic gleet may be very diffi- 

 cult to find. In the female the gonococcus is generally 

 exceedingly difficult to find in a vaginal discharge, in 

 which it is associated with swarms of other organisms. 

 It may occasionally be found in a vulvar discharge or in 

 discharge obtained from the cervix. In the male urethra 

 it is frequently associated with other Gram-negative 

 cocci. 



Cultural characters. The gonococcus is difficult to 

 cultivate, and usually soon dies out under cultivation 

 within a week, unless transferred to fresh soil but it 

 does not seem to lose its virulence. Growth takes place 

 between 25 and 38 C., but the optimum temperature 

 is between 35 and 37 C. It is aerobic, and possibly 

 facultatively anaerobic, and will develop on a feebly 

 alkaline or acid soil. The ordinary agar and gelatin 

 media are useless for the cultivation of the gonococcus ; 

 it will grow only on a medium containing " native " 

 protein. Blood-serum agar gives fair results, but the 

 ordinary Loffler's blood-serum is of no use. Legumin 

 trypagar and tryptamine media may be used. 1 The best 

 medium is agar smeared with blood. Ordinary sloping 

 agar tubes or small agar plates may be employed. Blood 

 obtained by pricking the finger, with antiseptic precau- 

 tions 5 is taken up in a sterile capillary tube and deposited 

 on the agar. A trace of gonorrhoeal pus, collected with 

 aseptic precautions, is taken up on a small sterile camel- 

 hair brush, and is rubbed up with the drop of blood and 

 smeared over the surface of the agar. The cultures are 

 incubated at 37 C., and in twenty -four hours the colonies 

 of the gonococcus appear as transparent greyish specks, 

 which increase in size up to the end of three days. At 

 this stage the colony measures 1 to 2 mm. in diameter, is 



1 Full directions for preparing these media will be found in Rep. No. 19, 

 Special Rep. Series, Medical Research Committee, 1918. 



