1294 



MANUAL OF DETERMINATIVE BACTERIOLOGY 



II. ORGANISMS OF UNCERTAIN CLASSIFICATION. 



Similar to the Pleuropneumonia Group. 



1. Coccobacillary bodies of Nelson. 



(Nelson, Science, 82, 1935, 43; Jour. Exp. 

 Med., 65, 1937, 833; Jour. Exp. Med., 72, 



1940, 645.) 



Nelson isolated a small bacillary organ- 

 ism apparently connected with coryza and 

 infectious catarrh from the nasal passages 

 of fowls and from the nasal passages and 

 the middle ear of mice and rats. Their 

 size appeared to be 0.3 to 0.4 micron in 

 microscopical preparations and they 

 passed through a filter with a pore size 

 of 640 millimicrons. They were isolated 

 in tissue cultures but they grow also in 

 the cell -free and heated supernatant 

 fluid. The freshly isolated cultures did 

 not grow on blood or on artificial media; 

 however, after 120 passages in tissue cul- 

 tures the fowl coryza bodies grew on 

 blood agar slants. On ascitic agar this 

 strain forms colonies very similar to those 

 of the pleuropneumonia group with a dark 

 center surrounded by a thin periphery. 

 The organisms in the top layer are 

 sometimes considerablj^ enlarged, but no 

 web-like structure is produced. The 

 organism is less soft and the individual 

 organisms maintained their form in the 

 preparations as do bacteria, and the ten- 

 dency to grow into the agar is less pro- 

 nounced than in the pleuropneumonia 

 group. The organism isolated from rats 

 is more pleomorphic than the others. 



The coccobacillary bodies were not 

 studied with methods appropriate to de- 

 termine whether they belong to the pleu- 

 ropneumonia group and whether the 

 mouse and rat strains are identical with 



the pleuropneumonia-like organisms iso- 

 lated from mice and rats. 



2. Filterable organisms from sewage 

 and soil. (Fam. Saprophytaceae Sabin, 

 Genus Sapromi/ces Sabin, Bact. Rev., 5, 

 1941, 59.) 



The strains isolated by Laidlaw and 

 Elford (Proc. Roy. Soc. London, B, 120, 

 1936, 292 ; Sapromyces laidlawi A B and C , 

 Sabin, loc. cit.) and Seiffert (Cent. f. 

 Bakt., I Abt., Orig., 139, 1937, 337) ac- 

 cording to 0rskov (Cent, f . Bakt., I Abt., 

 Orig., HI, 1938, 230) and Klieneberger 

 (Jour. Hyg., 40, 1940, 204) are closely 

 similar to the organisms of the pleuro- 

 pneumonia group. They are filterable, 

 and the smallest reproductive units of 

 those which we have appropriately ex- 

 amined were found to be between .125 

 and .175 micron. The colonies are simi- 

 lar in appearance to the colonies of the 

 pleuropneumonia group. 



The broth cultures consist of granules 

 and round globular elements ; the surface 

 layer of agar colonies sometimes swells 

 up into large round forms. They grow 

 without serum, but small amounts of 

 serum accelerate the growth. They 

 grow both at 30° and at 37°C. and remain 

 alive in cultures kept cold for several 

 months. The broth cultures grow abun- 

 dantly with a strong opalescence or sedi- 

 ment . vSerologically the strains are dis- 

 tinct from the other members of the 

 pleuropneumonia group and all but one 

 are more or less similar to each other. 



III. PLEUROPNEUMONIA-LIKE ORGANISMS ISOLATED FROM 

 BACTERIAL CULTURES. 



1. Pleuropneumonia-like organisms 

 isolated from Streptobacillus monili- 

 formis. Li (Klieneberger, Jour. Path, 

 and Bact., 40, 1930, 93; Jour. Hyg., 42, 

 1942, 485; Dienes, Jour. Inf. Dis., 65, 

 1939, 24; Jour. Bact., U, 1942, 37; Mus- 



culomyces streptobacilli-moniliformis Sa- 

 bin, Bact. Rev., 5, 1941, 57; Heilman, 

 Jour. Inf. Dis., 69, 1941, 32; Brown and 

 Nunemaker, Bull. Johns Hopkins Hosp., 

 70,1942,201.) 



Cultures isolated from different strains 



