SEA-FISHERIES LABORATORY. 333 



translucent colonies. Particular attention was paid to 

 these latter organisms and eight were selected and 

 examined in pure sub-culture as in the case of the 

 " colon-like " colonies. 



Most of these colonies were those of aberrant 

 organisms which could not be identified. Two of them 

 gave most of the reactions characterising Gaertner's 

 bacillus, and may possibly have been this microbe. One 

 of them, however, (isolated from mussel No. 2), was of 

 much greater significance, and had the following 

 characters : 



1. It formed a round, slightly raised, translucent 



colony on neutral red, bile-salt, lactose agar. 



2. It was motile. 



3. It formed acid only in bile-salt broth. 



4. Formed acid in glucose broth. 



5. Slightly discoloured lactose broth. 



6. Formed acid in mannite broth. 



7. Gave no reaction with cane sugar broth. 



8. Formed acid in milk. 



The agglutination test was made for me by Mr. 

 Lewis of the Pathological Department at Liverpool 

 University. Twenty-nine parts of an emulsion of the 

 bacillus were mixed with one part of a serum taken from 

 a patient suffering from enteric fever, and which gave a 

 positive result with a known strain of Bacillus typhosus. 

 This was kept under observation for half an hour. At 

 the end of this period well-marked clumping of the 

 bacilli took place. 



All these reactions are characteristic of Bacillus 

 typhosus the specific germ of enteric fever and I think it 

 highly probable, therefore, that this microbe was present 

 in mussel No. 2. 



It is only in comparatively few cases that B. 



