208 IMPOBTANT VARIETIES OF FISSION-FUNGI. 



Bacterium septicasmiae hasmorrhagicse. i Hiippe. 



(Plate 12.) 



irteratore.— Complete by Voges (Z. H. xxill, 261; xxvili, 33); 

 Karlinski (Z. H. xxvili, 407); Th. Smith I.C. B. xxv, 241); Voges 

 and Proskauer [Z. H. xxviil, 20) ; Preisz (C. B. XXITI, 666). 



Microscopic Appearance. — Short rods, from the 

 animal scarcely ever more than twice as long as thick, very 

 small (0.3-1 a long). Very often (always typically) in 

 the short rods with somewhat smaller ends only the poles 

 stain (plasmolysis) (12, ix and schematic, 12, x), so that 

 pictures resembling cliplococci result. Heim once observed 

 typical capsules. In cultures, likewise, there are mostly 

 short rods (12, ix), rarely short threads. 



Spontaneous motility and flagella are absent. 



Staining Properties. — Not by Gram's method. 



Dependence upon Temperature and Nutrient 

 Media. — About like the Bact. coli. Facultative anaerobe. 



Growth upon Agar and Gelatin. — As shown in Plate 

 12, differing but little from the Bact. coli. 



Milk Culture. — Behave differently. Our Berlin chicken 

 cholera presents the typical properties ; it renders milk 

 alkaline and leaves it fluid ; similar effects are produced 

 by a culture of LofSer' s swine plague from Berlin and one 

 of Honl. On the contrary, one obtained from C. Frankel 

 coagulated milk with formation of acid. 



Potato Culture. — Often no growth, especially when 

 cultivated freshly from the animal, or only a very scanty 



•- Our description is based upon a culture of " chicken cholera, " 

 obtained from the Hygienic Institute in Berlin, whose properties agree 

 excellently with those described in the literature. Two cultures, 

 of ' ' chicken cholera ' ' and ' ' rabbit septicemia, ' ' which have been culti- 

 vated in our institute for about six years, and which originally came 

 from a trustworthy but now unknown source, behave like typical 

 Bact. coli in the sense of the definition in our key. Unfortunately, 

 the connection between these can not be explained ; a, contamination 

 seems to be excluded, a transformation is improbable. One might see 

 a proof in this observation of the identity of the Bact. sept, hsemor- 

 rhag. with the motile organism of hog-cholera, so long maintained 

 especially by Voges. It does not seem possible to draw more far- 

 reaching conclusions from the observation, especially as Voges and 

 Proskauer now again maintain sharp differences between the causes o£ 

 the diseases from the biologic characteristics (fermentation of sugar, 



