494 PRINCIPLES OF VETERINARY SURGERY 



with paraffin. This process, which gives satisfactory results, is 

 also recommended in the notes of Baranski, Petrow, Babes 

 and Flormann. 



CULTIVATION. — The parasite is facultative. It can be 

 cultivated on potato, especially in the absence of air and with 

 the aid of pyrogallic acid, at a temperature of 22° to 24" C. 

 The culture is thick, wrinkled and of a sulphur yellow color. 

 Its characters are rather quickly modified. It becomes gray, 

 then white, and finally a yellowish green. The latter color is 

 developed from the exposure of the culture to light. In 

 serum the surface of the culture becomes covered with a 

 dirty, white coating. The parasite also grows on agar at 

 SS"" to 37" C, and on glycerinated agar. The cultures may re- 

 main for months in the form of grey tubercles, consisting 

 only of ramified filaments whicTi do not give spores. In 

 glycerinatgd peptonized bouillon the ray-fungus forms white, 

 round masses that do not cloud the media. It may also be 

 cultivated on the grains of cereals. Berard and Nichols have 

 made cultures on grains of oats and wheat, which they were 

 able to preserve for four years. At that time they presented 

 the form of a yellowish powder, consisting of spores that 

 were isolated or collected into chains. These elements ex- 

 ceeded the different cocci in size. 



The parasite thus preserved, when re-cultivated and then 

 inoculated into the rabbit, produced lesions in which the 

 typical forms were again found. 



The character of the ray-fungus in the tissues and in the 

 cultures has enabled naturalists to classify it, although there 

 is still some difference of opinion on that score. Some hold 

 that it belongs to the oospora, while others oppose this view 

 and maintain that the oospora and the actinomyces are dis- 

 tinct types. Gasperini recognized four species of the ray- 

 fungus, but Neumann considers that all forms of actino- 

 myces belong to one species, — the actinomyces bovis. 



