158 BACTERIOLOGY 



day, while very delicate fine branching filaments run out 

 from the track of inoculation on all sides, and have a 

 tolerably even length, thus differing from Bacillus ramosus, 

 the processes of which diminish in size from above down- 

 wards (fig. 58). Eamifications resembling mycelium 

 develop in like manner upon agar, and have at first some 

 likeness to the bar)} of a feather ; but the surface gradually 

 becomes covered with a thick coating. On serum an irregu- 

 larly-outlined granular layer appears even in twenty-four 

 hours, and spreads in a fern-like manner over the surface. 

 Potatoes are seen after two days to be invested in a fine close 

 mycelium-like texture of fibres. 



Bacterium mycoides roseum. — This microbe, described by 

 Scholl and Holschewnikoff, exhibits tolerably large rods 

 which are destitute of motility. A red colour develops early 

 in the colonies upon the gelatine plate, which coalesce with 

 one another and very soon liquefy. Thrust-cultures in 

 like manner show rapid liquefaction, with a red-coloured 

 superficial skin and a red sediment, but without any stain- 

 ing of the gelatine itself. Development takes place at 

 room temperature. Surface-cultures on agar display a 

 beautiful rose colour if grown in the dark, whereas the 

 growth is white if cultivated in daylight. Solutions of the 

 red pigment show an absorption band in the green when 

 placed before the slit of a spectroscope. 



Bacillus radiatus. — Liideritz found the Bacillus radiatus 

 in the ground, and in the juice from the subcutaneous tissue 

 of white mice which had been inoculated with garden mould. 

 Its rodlets possess a ready motility and grow anaerobically, 

 liquefying gelatine. Upon the gelatine plate, in 'high' 

 thrust-cultures, and on agar, there appears a tangle of 

 anastomosing fibres, recalling the radiating forms of moulds. 

 A very unpleasant-smellmg gas is generated in cultures on 

 serum or sugared gelatine. 



