244 A MANUAL OF BACTERIOLOGY 



Vaccine and anti-serum. Cases have been reported of 

 remarkable benefit derived by vaccinating with killed 

 cultures. 



Flexner has prepared an anti- serum with which suc- 

 cessful results have been obtained. 



Still observed in simple posterior basic meningitis of infants a 

 diplococcus closely resembling the meningococcus but growing more 

 freely on agar, etc. By some it is regarded as an attenuated form 

 of the latter. According to Arkwright it does not liquefy gelatin, 

 and grows on this medium at 22 C., fails to produce acid from 

 glucose, maltose, and galactose, and is not agglutinated by a 

 meningococcus serum. It is in these respects very like the 

 M . cinereus of Lingelsheim. Wollstein 1 failed to find any reliable 

 criteria of difference between strains of the D. intracellularis and 

 several cultures obtained from cases of posterior basic meningitis. 

 Houston and Rankin 2 found that ten Gram-negative cocci isolated 

 from cases of sporadic cerebro -spinal meningitis differed from the 

 D. intracellularis in respect of their opsonins and agglutinins, 

 though eight of them were identical with the meningococcus in fer- 

 mentative power. Diplococcus crassus (Gram-positive), D. mucosus 

 (grows on gelatin), D. flavus (produces yellow pigment), and 

 M. catarrhalis, the three latter Gram-negative, may occur in the 

 naso-pharynx. (See Arkwright, loc. cit., also p. 248.) 



Gram-positive cocci and other organisms may occasionally cause 

 a sporadic cerebro-spinal meningitis, e.g. the pneumococcus, typhoid 

 and Gartner bacilli, and streptococci (S.fcecalis and S. salivarius, 

 Symmers and Wilson, loc. cit. 1909). 



Micrococcus gonorrhoeas 



The Micrococcus gonorrhcece was discovered by Neisser in 

 1879 in cases of gonorrhceal urethritis. In gonorrhoeal 

 pus it occurs usually in pairs, occasionally in tetrads, the 

 elements of which are somewhat ovoid in shape, their 

 opposed surfaces being flattened. The organism has a 

 characteristic arrangement : it occurs in groups within 



1 Studies from the Rockefeller Inst., vol. x, 1910, No. 13. 



2 Brit. Med. Journ., 1907, vol. ii, p. 1414. 



