798 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIX. No. 1013 



"Effect of Glass Walls on Thermionic Cur- 

 rents," by Saul Dushman. 



' ' A New Design of Flicker Photometer for Lab- 

 oratory C!olored-light Photometry," by H. E. Ives 

 and E. J. Brady. 



"Note on the Physiological Effect of the Cur- 

 rent," by F. J. Rogers. 



"Examples of the Precision Attainable in De- 

 terminations of Thermal Expansivity, ' ' by Arthur 

 W. Gray. 



"Dioptric FormulsB for Combined Cylindrical 

 Lenses at Oblique Axes," by Charles Sheard. (By 

 title.) 



"The Testing of Potentiometers," by Frank 

 Wenner and Ernest Weibel. 



"An Absorbing Solution for Eliminating Color 

 Differences in Photometry," by H. E. Ives and E. 

 F. Kingsbury. 



"Photographs of Retrograde Rays, (a) from 

 the Cold Cathode, (6) from the Hot Lime Cath- 

 ode," by O. H. Smith. 



A. D. Cole, 

 Secretary 



THE SOCIETY OF AMEEICAN BACTERIOL- 

 OGISTS 

 II 



THURSDAY, JANUARY 1, 1914 



Systematic Bactei-iology 

 Morpliology of the Bacteria (Vibi-o and Spirillum) , 



An Early Sesearoh: Joseph Leidy, Je. 



This paper will be published in Science. 

 The Classification Card and the Type or Study 



which it Merits: H. A. Harding. 



The classification card has not appealed to the 

 pathologists, because they could test unknown cul- 

 tures more quickly on animals, nor to water bac- 

 teriologists because their attention has been 

 focused upon B. coli and special media, but it has 

 been very valuable to students of bacterial ecology. 

 The card is justly criticized because the observa- 

 tions of bacterial cultures are not always accurately 

 recorded by it and because the present group num- 

 ber is unwieldy and of undetermined value as a 

 basis for classification. One of the most urgent de- 

 mands of bacteriology to-day is the cartful testing 

 out of various suggestions looking toward an im- 

 proved technique. Dr. H. J. Conn has suggested 

 that the ease of handling the group number can be 

 increased by pointing it off into periods of about 

 three figures each. The significance of such 

 periods would be increased if each was devoted to 

 a class of reactions such as morphology, fermen- 



tation, nitrogen relations and enzyms. The reac- 

 tions should be selected for this group number 

 after careful study of their accuracy and utility, 

 and pending the results of this study the card of 

 1907 should be retained practically unchanged. 



Constancy in the Fermentative Activity of Strepto- 

 cocci: Jean Broadhurst. 



Attempts to correlate the fermentative results of 

 different workers in saccharose mannit and other 

 Gordon media have led to a series of experiments 

 dealing with the different conditions characterizing 

 the technique in different laboratories. Differences, 

 such as acidity, presence or absence of sugars, sub- 

 jection to raw and variously heated milks, were 

 tried out without finding any definite results on 

 the later Gordon reactions. Slight and brief in- 

 creases in temperature (above 37°) depressed fer- 

 mentative activity decidedly. Much more marked 

 (as previously reported) were the contrasts result- 

 ing from the use of meat extract and of meat Gor- 

 don media. These effects are evidently not neces- 

 sarily lasting. Permanent changes were effected 

 by a stay in the alimentary canal (e. g., a gain in 

 lactose in dogs fed on streptococci-free milk). Cul- 

 tures kept for 1 to 4 months on meat agar (10-day 

 transfers) showed a gain in the amount of fermen- 

 tative activity (the amount of acid), many strains 

 show also a gain in the number of substances fer- 

 mented ; less often a loss occurred in the number of 

 substances fermented. Studies carried on with in- 

 dividual animals for varying periods (2-10 mo.) 

 showed unexpectedly wide ranges in the physiolog- 

 ical types of mouth and fecal streptococci, affecting 

 probably the diagnostic value of fermentative re- 

 actions. These, and other phases of the work re- 

 ported upon, seem to warrant the following con- 

 clusions: (1) Constancy may be claimed for strep- 

 tococci under identical or duplicate conditions. 

 (2) Constancy in these fermentative responses is 

 also characteristic of a large percentage of strains, 

 under varying or varied conditions. Age, a stay in 

 the alimentary canal, and meat extract, have more 

 effect on such results than any of the (19) varied 

 conditions tried. 



The Relation of Satitat and Physiological Char- 

 acters in the Streptococci: L. A. Rogers and 

 Arnold Dahlbekg. 



It is reasonable to assnme that true species in 

 the bacteria will be found associated with a defi- 

 nite habitat as it is with the higher plants and 

 animals. Studies were made of the physiological 

 characters of 51 cultures from infected udders; 

 114 cultures from bovine feces; 31 cultures from 



