354 A MANUAL OP BACTERIOLOGY 



Fusiform bacilli have been met with in various necrotic pro- 

 cesses, e.g. noma (see Chapter XX). 



The Xerosis Bacillus 



The xerosis bacillus was isolated by Neisser from cases of 

 xerosis conjunctivas, and is met with in follicular conjunctivitis. 

 Lawson and also Griffith isolated it from nearly 50 per cent, of all 

 normal conjunctival sacs. In morphology and staining reactions 

 it resembles the Klebs-Loffler bacillus very closely. It differs 

 from the Klebs-Loffler bacillus in the following particulars : 

 (1) Usually, but not always, in the primary cultivations from the 

 eye on blood-serum, colonies do not appear under about thirty 

 hours, while those of the Klebs-Loffler bacillus are visible in 

 sixteen to twenty hours. This does not apply to the secondary 

 cultivations, in which the colonies appear as soon as those of the 

 Klebs-Loffler bacillus. (2) Upon agar it will seldom or never 

 grow in primary culture, and in secondary cultures it forms only 

 a thin, translucent, dry film. (3) Upon gelatin it will never grow 

 in primary culture and seldom in secondary culture. (4) It does 

 not give rise to acid production in milk or glucose broth. (5) It 

 is non-pathogenic to guinea-pigs. (6) The Neisser stain is nega- 

 tive. The fermentation reactions will be found in the Table on 

 p. 348. 



In all probability the organism is not causative of xerosis 

 conjunctivas. 



To isolate the organism, blood -serum tubes are inoculated with 

 a looped platinum needle from cases of follicular conjunctivitis or 

 xerosis and incubated at 37 C. for forty to forty-eight hours. 

 Half the tubes will usually show a growth. Preparations may be 

 stained with Loffler's blue and by Gram's method. 



Bacillus coryzae (segmentosus) 



An organism first described by Cautley, of frequent occurrence 

 in the nasal secretion in cases of " influenza " cold. It bears a 

 striking resemblance morphologically to the B. diphtheria when 

 stained with methylene blue, and is Gram-positive, but does not 

 show granules either with Loffler blue or with Neisser's stain. On 

 agar it grows more slowly than B. diphtheria, and in glucose broth 



