VIII, B. 2 Butler: Carbohydrate Reactions 131 



the results obtained by different men when working with the 

 same bacteria. In the admirable article on bacillary dysentery 

 in Allbutt's System of Medicine, Flexner(5) states that "the 

 number of variants among this group of bacilli is considerable, 

 and it is probably incorrect to continue the subdivision into type 

 indefinitely." This statement is one which we would do well to 

 take to heart. But I believe that when the cause of the apparent 

 variability is identifi:;d, it will not all be explained on the basis 

 of the bacilli doing one thing one day and another the next, but 

 rather due to the media and the methods. It would be in the 

 interest of exact knowledge and of practical bacteriology if some 

 scientific body or laboratory took up the question of standard 

 methods in carbohydrate work as applied to bacteriology. Dur- 

 ing the past four months I have inoculated several, thousand 

 carbohydrate tubes with the same strains of bacteria, and in 

 only one instance have I been unable to explain variable results 

 by a change in the sugar or else contamination, and it is my 

 belief that the reactions of bacteria toward pure carbohydrates 

 are as fixed and definite as any other characters used in the 

 identification of microorganisms. 



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(1) Smith, Theobald. Ueber die Bedeutung des Zuckers in Kulturmedien 



fiir Bakterien. Centralbl. /. Bald, etc., 1. Abt. (1895), 18, 1. 



(2) Lehmann und Neumann. Atlas und Grundriss der Bakteriologie 



(1912), 354. 



(3) Ohno, Y. K. The types of bacilli of the dysentery group. Phil. 



Journ. Sci. (1906), 1, 951. 



(4) Castellani, Aldo. Observations on some intestinal bacteria found in 



man. Centralbl. f. Bakt. etc., Orig. (1912), 65, 262. 



(5) Allbutt and Rolleston. A System of Medicine (1907), 2, Pt. 2, 491 



and 492. 



