MORPHOLOGY AND CLASSIFICATION 167 



Classification and Specific Nomenclature. — The classification 

 of microbes is at present in an unsatisfactory state. In part this 

 situation may be ascribed to the difficulty of ascertaining and 

 observing accurately the features important for classification in 

 this group of living things. In part, however, the confusion 

 depends upon a too little controlled activity in the creation of 

 new names by authors unwilling to expend the time and labor to 

 become famihar with the old names. One should not hghtly 

 create new genera and the author who creates a new genus may 

 well be called upon to prove the necessity for its creation before 

 the added burden is tacked on to our nomenclature. Generic 

 names are subject to revision as are also the names of families and 

 larger groups. It is hoped that some authoritative body such as 

 an international committee of bacteriologists or of general biolo- 

 gists, will in the near future decide upon a definite scheme for 

 the classification of the fungi and especially the schizomycetes. 

 A committee of the Society of American Bacteriologists has pub- 

 lished^ a proposed classification which may serve to further an 

 international agreement. At present the introduction of such a 

 more elaborate and gtill somewhat unsettled classification into 

 an elementary textbook, would seem premature. 



The classification of the protozoa is in a more satisfactory state, 

 largely because of the monumental work of Doflein^ but even in 

 this realm the careless creation of new genera and the use of differ- 

 ent generic names for the same organism by different authors is 

 to.be regretted. 



A species is properly designated by a Latin binomial, the first 

 member of the name being the name of the genus and the second 

 member the specific name, such, for example, as Mucor mucedo, 

 Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Bacillus coli, Spirochaeta pallida, Plas- 

 modium falciparum and Balantidium coli. Bacillus is the generic 

 term and coli the specific term. A third term is allowable to 



' Winslow, Broadhurst, Buchanan, Krumwiede, Rogers and Smith: The families 

 and genera of the bacteria, Journal of Bacteriology, 1917, 2, p. 505. 

 ' Doflein, F., Lehrbuch der Protozoenkunde, Jena, 191 1. 



