482 BOWMAN. 



being made at the. same time with a typical nonacid-producing dysentery 

 organism of the Shiga and an acid-producing one of the Flexner type. 

 Antidysenteric sera from rabbits which had been immunized by 

 Dr. E. E. Whitmore of this laboratory were used, one agglutinating 

 specifically the acid type of organism and the other that of the nonacid 

 type. Table I shows the dilutions employed and that the organisms from 

 monkeys numbered I and II were both agglutinated by the nonacid 

 strain, and in the same dilutions as the true acid strain used in the same 

 experiment. They were not agglutinated by the Shiga serum. 



Each organism was also tested as to its acid-producing and sugar- 

 fermenting properties. (See Table II.) No acid was produced in 

 lactose-litmus-agar, while the other four sugars used showed marked acid 

 production. No gas was formed in any of the media. 



No evidence is at hand which would indicate, that these monkeys be- 

 came infected from our laboratory cultures of the dysentery bacillus. A 

 few rabbits were in the same animal bouse in the other end of the build- 

 ing. These animals had been inoculated subcutaneously with dysentery 

 organisms five months previously, but they had never been placed near 

 the cages containing these monkeys. The monkeys had been in the 

 laboratory for months and it seemed highly probable that they had ac- 

 quired the infection here. 



If monkeys can be infected with bacillary dysenteTy, naturally it is not 

 improbable that other animals may become carriers and give rise to the 

 sudden appearance of this disease in previously noninfected districts. 

 Only one observer has reported the production of the disease in monkeys 

 by feeding experiments, and a search through the literature at hand fails 

 to show a previous report of natural or spontaneous infection of monkeys 

 with bacillary dysentery. 



