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IX. — On Micrococcus Pasteuri (Sternberg). 



By George M. Sternberg, M.D., F.E.M.S., 



Major and Surgeon U.S. Army. 



(Bead 12th May, 1886.) 



At the January meeting of this Society, an interesting paper was 

 read by Mr. Dowdeswell * upon the microbe of fowl-cholera. His 

 microscopical and experimental researches have led him to the 

 conclusion that the microbe of fowl-cholera is identical with that of 

 the form of rabbit-septicaemia described by Davaine. 



It is not quite certain that " Davaine's septicaemia " is identical 

 with that form of rabbit-septicaemia which Koch, Gaffky, Dowdes- 

 well and others have induced by injecting putrefying infusions of 

 beef, &c., beneath the skin of a rabbit. According to Klein, 

 " Davaine's septicaemia is distinguished from Koch's septicaemia in 

 the rabbit by this, that Davaine's septicaemia is easily transmissible 

 to guinea-pigs, but not to birds." t 



But there can be little doubt as to the identity of that form of 

 septicaemia which Mr. Dowdeswell has studied experimentally with 

 the infectious disease which Koch } and Gaffky § had previously 

 ioduced in rabbits by injections of similar material ; and also with 

 the microbe of fowl-cholera. 



Toussaint insisted upon the identity of the microbe of fowl- 

 cholera with that of experimental septicaemia in a communication 

 to the French Academy of Sciences made in 1880,|| and in 

 Germany this identity is, I believe, ;;eT^ orally conceded by bacteri- 

 ologists. Mr. Dowdesw ell's experimental researches 1[ and the 

 figures illustrating his recent paper, published in -%is Journal, fully 

 sustain this view. 



But the inference made in the same paper that the micrococcus 

 which I have described under the name of M. Pasteuri, is also 

 identical with the microbe of fowl-cholera and of that form of 

 rabbit-septicaemia which he has studied, is a mistake, which has 

 evidently arisen from an imperfect acquaintance with the morpho- 

 logical and physiological characters of M. Pasteuri. 



The object of the present paper is to call attention to those 

 characters which distinguish this micrococcus in a very definite 



* See this Journal, ante, p. 32. 

 t ' Micro-Organisms and Disease,' London, 1885. 



X ' Untersuchungen ub. d. Aetiologie d. Wundinfections-Krankheiten,' Leipzig, 

 1878. 



§ MT. a. d. K. Gesundheits-amte, Berlin, 1881, pp. 93-114. 

 II Comptes Rendus, xci. (1880) pp. 301-3. 

 i Proc. Roy. Soc, Nos. 221 and 223, 1882. 



