Bacillus Capsulatus Mucosus 



485 



Botiillon. — -There is nothing characteristic about the bouillon 

 cultures of Friedlander's bacillus. The 

 medium is diffusely clouded. A pellicle 

 usually forms on the surface and a viscid 

 sediment soon accumulates. 



Gelatin Puncture.^ — When a colony is 

 transferred to a gelatin puncture culture, 

 a luxuriant growth occurs. Upon the 

 surface a somewhat elevated, rounded white 

 mass is formed, and in the track of the wire 

 innumerable little colonies spring up and 

 become confluent, so that a "nail-growth" 

 results. No hquefaction of the gelatin oc- 

 curs. Gas bubbles not infrequently appear 

 in the wire track. The cultures sometimes 

 become brown in color when old. 



Agar-agar. — Upon the surface of agar- 

 agar at ordinary temperatures a luxuriant 

 white or brownish-yellow, smeary, viscid, 

 circumscribed growth occurs. 



Blood-serum. — The blood-serum growth 

 is similar to that upon agar. 



Potato. — Upon potato the growth is 

 luxuriant, quickly covering the entire sur- 

 face with a thick yeUowish-white layer, 

 which sometimes contains bubbles of 

 gas. 



Milk is not coagulated as a rule. Litmus 

 milk is reddened. 



Vital Resistance. — The bacillus grows at 

 a temperature as low as i6°C., and, ac- 

 cording to Sternberg has a thermal death- 

 point of s6°C. 



Metabolic Products. — Friedlander's ba- 

 cillus ferments nearly all the sugars, with 

 the evolution of much gas. It generates 

 alcohol, acetic and other acids, and both 

 CO2 and H. According to the best author- 

 ities the organism does not form indol. 

 There is, however, some difference of opinion 

 upon the subject. 



Perkins* divides the organisms of this 

 group into three chief" types according to 

 their reactions toward carbohydrates : 



I. Bacillus aerogenes type which ferment all carbohydrates, 

 with the formation of gas. 



* "Jour, of Infect. Djs.," 1904, i, No. 2, p 241. 



Fig. 172. — Friedlan- 

 der's pneumobacillus; 

 gelatin stab culture, 

 showing the typical 

 nail-head appearance 

 and the formation of 

 gas bubbles, not always 

 present (Curtis). 



