Septembee 27, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



41J 



few comparative tests which were made, the 

 degree of impregnation was greatest with the 

 pallida. Whether this is to be accounted for 

 by elective affinity or difference of medium in 

 which the organisms were embedded can not 

 be said. In the course of these examinations 

 the author came across examples of flagellated 

 bacteria from the buccal cavity in which the 

 flagella were distinctly silvered. He attempt- 

 ed to stain the flagella of certain bacteria — 

 B. typhosus, paratyphosus, pyocyaneus, hog 

 cholera — from pure cultures, but unsuccess- 

 fully. The terminal cilia of the pallida ap- 

 peared not to be stained by the silver. 



Flexner observed instances in which the sil- 

 vered films showed many more spirochetw pal- 

 lida than the corresponding preparations 

 stained by Giemsa's or Proca's methods. 

 On the Bacterial Production of 8hatol and 



its Occurrence in the Human Intestinal 



Tract: C. A. Herter. 



A large number of facultative and strict 

 anerobic organisms have been studied with 

 respect to their ability to form skatol. The 

 anerobes B. putrificus (strain isolated by 

 Bienstock) and one strain of the bacillus of 

 malignant edema (obtained from Professor 

 Theobald Smith) were found to produce ska- 

 tol in peptone bouillon, although it was not 

 possible to determine the conditions under 

 which skatol could be regularly obtained 

 through the action of these bacteria. It was 

 found that skatol is rarely present in the in- 

 testinal tract except in conditions of disease 

 associated with intestinal putrefaction. Usu- 

 ally skatol is associated with indol in such 

 conditions, although there are instances in 

 which the intestinal contents exhibit little or 

 no indol but, relatively speaking, considerable 

 skatol. This has been observed heretofore 

 only in putrefactive processes associated with 

 pronounced clinical manifestations. 

 A Spirochete found in the Blood of a Wild 



Rat: W. J. MacNeal. 



Of thirty-nine wild rats {Mus decumanus) 

 caught at Morgantown, W. Va., by MacNeal, 

 one has shown a minute, actively motile, 

 spiral organism in the blood. It is present 

 in very small numbers and careful search 



with high magnification is necessary to detect 

 its presence. 



The parasite stains readily by the various 

 modifications of the Eomanowsky stain, and 

 very intensely by the rapid method recom- 

 mended for clinical staining of Spirocheta 

 pallida.^ It takes a uniform, deep, violet-red 

 color. The measurement of a number of in- 

 dividuals shows a marked variation in length, 

 the shortest forms, consisting of one and three 

 quarters turns or nodes, having a length of 

 1.75 M ; the longest, consisting of three and one 

 half tui-ns, being 3.55 /^ long. 



The infection is readily transferred to other 

 wild rats by intraperitoneal injection of a 

 very small drop of infected blood in normal 

 salt solution. In many cases, not more than 

 ten or twenty parasites could have been pres- 

 ent in the injection, yet, so far, the wild rats 

 have always developed the infection. The 

 parasites never become very numerous and 

 disappear in from one to nine days. This 

 apparent recovery is then followed by repeated 

 relapses. The parasite may become more nu- 

 merous in the blood during the relapse than 

 in the primary invasion. Neither a certain 

 recovery nor a fatal result has, as yet, been 

 observed. 



White rats are susceptible, with an incuba- 

 tion period of four to eight days according to 

 the dose employed. The house mouse (ilfws 

 musculus) is apparently more resistant. 



Similar spirochetes have been described by 

 Carter (in the rat), by Lingard (in the bandi- 

 coot, Mv^ giganteus), by Nicolle and Cointe 

 (in the bat), by Wenyon and by Breinl and 

 Kinghorn (in the house mouse) ; all these in 

 the circulating blood. Borrel and Gaylord 

 have described spiral organisms in mouse car- . 

 cinomata, and one of the forms found by Bor- 

 rel has been shown by Wenyon to be identical 

 with his Spirocheta muris, found in the blood 

 of mice. Morphologically the parasite found 

 here in the rat is apparently identical with 

 this one of Borrel and Wenyon. Its behavior 

 in animals is somewhat different. MadSTeal 

 tentatively proposes for it the name Spiro- 



* MacNeal, Journal Amer. Med. Assn., February 

 16, 1907. 



