1911.] Cultivating the Mycobacterium enteritidis, etc. 



527 



The other micro-organism which suggested itself was the timothy-grass 

 bacillus. From very remote times this bacillus must have been repeatedly 

 ingested by bovines in their food, and it seems quite possible that it may be 

 the wild ancestor and originator of Johne's bacillus which now infests the 

 intestine, causing pseudo-tuberculous enteritis. Batches of medium contain- 

 ing \ per cent, of this bacillus in place of the human tubercle bacillus were 

 prepared, placed into tubes, and sterilised in the maimer previously described. 

 A number of these tubes were inoculated with pure cultures of Johne's 

 bacillus and incubated at 39° to 40° C. as before. These cultures grew quickly 

 •and well, the growth being better than on any of the media containing the 

 human tubercle bacillus. A slight growth was visible along the needle track 

 after incubation for one week, and after six weeks the growth closely 

 resembled that of a bovine tubercle bacillus recently isolated from the 

 animal body. A full description of the cultural characters of the bacillus 

 will be given later. The smegma bacillus of Moeller, the nasenschleim bacillus 

 of Karlinski, and the fish tubercle bacillus of Dubard were then tested in 

 place of the human tubercle bacillus ; each type was added to the medium in 

 quantities of \ to 1 per cent, of the dried powdered growth. The first two 

 media gave satisfactory results, but were not quite so good as media contain- 

 ing the timothy-grass bacillus. The fish tubercle bacillus medium gave 

 negative results, but so far only one batch of this has been tested. 



The butter bacillus of Eabinowitsch was also found to be unsuitable. 

 Certain blastomyces and non-acid-fast bacilli which have been recently 

 investigated also gave negative results.* 



In the above experiments it must be noted that we were testing the 

 various media with vigorous growing strains of Johne's bacillus, some strains 

 of which had been growing outside the animal body for nearly a year. The 

 question now arose as to whether we should have obtained the same good 

 results with such micro-organisms as the timothy-grass bacillus, had we 

 started by inoculating the media directly with bovine tissue infected with 

 Johne's bacillus, instead of with cultures which had been growing outside the 

 animal body for a considerable period. 



To test this point Mr. de Vine kindly sent us a further specimen of 

 diseased gut, and this, our sixth case, was received at the Institution on 

 July 28, 1911. The specimen was delivered in a fresh condition, and 

 showed the appearance of pseudo-tuberculous enteritis, most marked near 



* Subsequent experiments have shown that the following acid-fast bacilli can also be 

 used in the medium, and give good results : — B. Pseudoperlsucht, Moeller ; B. aus Ham, 

 Marpmann ; B. aus Butter, Grassberger. No positive results have yet been obtained 

 with the Tobler group of acid-fast bacilli (January 29, 1912). 



