IDENTITY OF AMERICAN AND FRENCH SPOROTRICHOSIS 123 
This and other evidence, which will be presented elsewhere, 
make it apparent that the American sporotricha—of which we 
studied thirty-five strains—have, in many respects, type char- 
acters in common with Sporothrix beurmanni. In the light of 
de Beurmann’s and Gougerot’s work, some of the American 
strains are doubtless Sporothrix beurmanni, and it is not per- 
missible to call such strains ‘‘Sporothrix schenckii’’ merely for 
the sake of simplicity. The discussion of de Beurmann and 
Gougerot (28) on this subject can now also in our opinion, be 
satisfactorily closed, namely: that Sporothrix schenckii, Hektoen- 
Gougerot strain, is an absolutely fixed type. The true Sporothrix 
schenckii is represented however by all of the recently isolated 
strains. Inasmuch as most of these strains are undoubtedl; 
identical with Sporothrix beurmanni, the Sporothrix schenckii is 
identical with the Sporothrix beurmanni. 
The American strains of pathogenic sporotricha are therefore 
best classified as one species. Sporothrix schenckii-beurmanni (as 
suggested by Greco.) 
Having now completed the discussion of the several points 
of differentiation quoted above from de Beurmann and Gouge- 
rot, I shall next briefly consider certain other similarities of 
the French and American strains of sporotricha that deserve 
mention, it seems to me, in a discussion of their possible iden- 
tity. Slight and otherwise insignificant differences between 
organisms may be determined often by differences in serum 
reactions in varying concentrations. In the study of this 
group of organisms, Widal and Abrami showed that 
positive agglutination occurred in patient’s serum in dilu- 
tions often of 1/400 or 1/500 or even higher. This has been 
confirmed by several workers. For differential purposes they 
noted that patients suffering with other mycelial infections 
like actinomycosis, nocardiosos, ete., give a positive but much 
lower agglutination. Gougerot and Caraven noted that the 
serum of a case of hemisporosis agglutinated in dilution of 
1/400. This was evidently exceptional. 
The writer immunized rabbits with several strains of 
sporothrix for a*period of about 8 months. The strains in- 
cluded Sporotrichum schenckii obtained from Hektoen, Sporo- 
Bull. et Mem. de la Soc. Med. de Hop. de Paris, 26, p. 9, 1908. 
