BACILLI 421 



PROTEUS ZENKEEI 



I LIQUEFIES GELATI NE | 



Authority.— Hauser, Ueher Fdulnis-Bakterien, Leipzig, 1885. 



"Where Found. — In putrefying animal substances. Included by Eoux (loc. 

 cit.) and Lustig (loc. cit.) amongst organisms found in water. 



Microscopic Appearance.— Bacilli about 0-4 fx broad, and on an average about 

 1*65 /u long ; rounder as well as longer forms are also found. It is motile. 



Cultures.— 



Gelatine Plates. — Forms a thick, whitish grey expansion, which can easily 

 be removed from the surface. It gives rise to no zooglcea figures in the depth, 

 which serves to distinguish it from Froteus vulgaris and Protetis mirahilis. 

 The gelatine is very slowly and slightly liquefied. 



Gelatine Tubes. — Forms an expansion, becoming thinner by regular steps 

 towards the periphery, from the edge of which numerous small rods and threads 

 extend in a meandex'ing fashion. 



Eemarks. — It is facultatively anaerobic. Pathogenic to guinea-x^igs and rabbits. 



BACILLUS PBOTEUS FLUOEESCENS 



LIQUEFIES GELATINE 



Authority. — Jaeger, ' Die Aetiologie des infectiosen fieberhaften Icterus,' 

 Zeitschrift f. Hygiene, vol. xii., 1892, p. 525. 



Where Found.— Isolated from the kidney and spleen of fowls which had 

 died of some epidemic disease ; also obtained from a stream into which the dead 

 carcases were thrown. Jaeger states that he believes it to be identical with an 

 organism which he isolated in cases of infectious feverish icterus which occurred 

 amongst people who had bathed in contaminated water. 



Microscopic Appearance. — Very variable in form. Sometimes short, thick 

 bacilh, with rounded ends, mostly in pairs, in which the division is more or 

 less distinct, according to the intensity of the stain. Forms also short threads, 

 which are sometimes wavy. The poles often stain more intensely than the middle^ 

 leaving a colourless void. It is difficult to stain well ; carbol-fuchsin, warmed on 

 the cover-glass, yields the best results. It is not coloured by Gram's method. la 

 provided with numerous cilia, and is very motile. No spore formation observed. 



Cultures. — 



Gelatine Plates. — In from twenty-four to thirty-six hours, or after four 

 days, small colonies, resembling bright drops of water, are visible. Under a 

 low power they are circular, light yellow, smooth-rimmed and slightly granular ; 

 later the contour becomes somewhat lobular. When liquefaction begins the 

 gelatine sinks in the shape of a funnel, and the colony resembles that of an 

 advanced anthrax growth. The surface colonies recall a typhoid growth, the 

 centre being, however, thick, lumpy, and white ; later they resemble a well- 

 developed anthrax colony, forming also characteristic Proteus figures and the 

 typical isolated ' islands ' in the solid gelatine. 



Gelatine Tubes.— Forms an expansion on the surface which sinks, and the 

 gelatine is liquefied in the shape of an air-bubble exactly resembling the cultures 

 of the Comma bacillus. The gelatine becomes green fluorescent. A pellicle 

 forms on the surface, which is sometimes thick and at times delicate, and 

 wrinkled at the edge. 



AGAR-AGAK.--At 37*5° C. it forms in twenty-four hours growths resembling 

 clear drops of water, and in forty-eight hours there appears a thick, yellowish 

 white expansion, which produces a green fluorescence, and forms a flocculent 

 deposit in the condensed water. 



Potatoes. — Forms a thick, smeary, pale yellow expansion, which later 

 becomes dark brown, and the potato assumes a bluish grey colour. 



Broth. — Renders it turbid, and forms a pellicle occasionally. 



Remarks. — It is pathogenic to mice. 



