Museum of Living Bacteria 93 



the Darwin Hall) and the fly, the flea, the louse and the yellow 

 fever mosquito (in the Hall of Public Health). A profusely 

 illustrated leaflet of 73 pages on Insects and Disease by 

 C.-E. A. Winslow and F. E. Lutz has been issued during the 

 year as a guide to this field of zoology and public health. 



The Museum of Living Bacteria has proved of special ser- 

 vice during the year in connection with a number of sanitary 

 and industrial problems created by the war. Re- 

 Museum of search workers in the cantonments and other 

 Bacteria army medical laboratories have made frequent 



calls for cultures to be used in connection with 

 studies of wound diseases and respiratory infections, and the 

 manufacture of glycerin by biological methods has been suc- 

 cessfully accomplished by the use of a culture of yeast obtained 

 for our collection from Germany some years before the war. 

 The value of our collection of living bacterial types is strik- 

 ingly illustrated by this latter occurrence ; for, so far as we are 

 aware, this particular organism could not a year ago have been 

 found in America outside of the laboratories of the American 

 Museum. 



The total number of strains of microbes now under cultiva- 

 tion is 655. During the year ending December 1, 1918, 3,075 

 cultures were sent without charge to laboratories of health de- 

 partments and universities, making a total of 22,055 cultures 

 distributed since the opening of the laboratory in 191 1. Sixty- 

 six new institutions have received our cultures during the year, 

 making 701 institutions in all which have benefited by this ser- 

 vice. 



Changes in staff due to war conditions have interfered ma- 

 terially with the research work of the department. It has been 

 possible, however, to make substantial progress in 

 Research on the revision of the classification of one important 

 Cl Cte ifi al - £ rou P °* Dacte ri a > the staphylococci of the skin, 

 tion which play an important part in the milder wound 



diseases, and Curator Winslow has continued to 

 serve as Chairman of the Committee on Classification of the 

 Society of American Bacteriologists. 



