78 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 134 
pigs and pigeons (Breed et al., 1948). Leibovitz (1951) found that 
the organism he isolated produced a marked reaction when inoculated 
into the skin of a guinea pig. 
Natural vectors.—Periplaneta americana, U.S.A., Texas (Leibovitz, 
1951): Organism, tentatively identified as M. piscium, was isolated 
from macerated intestines of cockroaches captured in sewers. 
Experimental vectors——Blatta orientalis, U.S.S.R. (Ekzempliar- 
skaia in Pavlovskii, 1948): The organism was excreted in the feces 
for up to 2.5 months after it was fed to the cockroach. The virulence 
to guinea pigs increased on passage through the cockroach. 
Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Schroeter) Lehmann and Neumann 
Synonymy.—‘“Bacillo di Koch” of Cao. “Tuberkuleznykh kultur 
(chelovecheskii, bychii)” of Pavlovskii. 
Common name.—Human tubercle bacillus. 
Disease.—Tuberculosis in man; transmissible to rabbits and guinea 
pigs. 
Experimental vectors.—Blatta orientalis, Italy (Cao, 1898): The 
organism passed unchanged in virulence through the insect with the 
feces. Germany (Kuster, 1903): Kuster fed the insects pure culture 
of tubercle bacillus in potato mash. After 2 days, he recovered a great 
mass of M. tuberculosis in the feces. He injected some of this ex- 
creted material into guinea pigs 3 and 9 days after a feeding. Both 
died of typical tuberculosis after 2 months. U.S.S.R. (Ekzempliar- 
skaia in Pavlovskii, 1948): M. tuberculosis var. hominis and M. 
tuberculosis var. bovis, when fed in culture, were excreted in the feces 
for up to 2 months thereafter. The virulence (tested in guinea pigs) 
of these organisms was somewhat weakened by passage through the 
cockroach. 
Blattella germanica, on shipboard (Morrell, 1911): M. tuberculosis 
was present in the feces within 24 hours after the insect had fed on 
sputum from a tuberculous patient. 
Periplaneta americana, Gold Coast Colony (Macfie, 1922): The 
feces of cockroaches fed tuberculous sputum were examined daily. 
Feces passed from the second to fifth day contained tubercle bacilli; 
from the sixth to the fourteenth day, when examinations were stopped, 
no more tubercle bacilli were detected. 
Cockroaches, Venzeuela (Tejera, 1926) : A group of 30 cockroaches 
were fed sputum containing M. tuberculosis, over a 3-day period. 
Ninety percent of the feces excreted over several days contained 
typical acid-fast bacilli. Some of these insects, when killed 4o days 
