340 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
rating and at the same time of causing tne agglomeration of tlie bodies 
which contain it, or which are suspended in the fluid. 
The substance is located in the external layer of the microbe, and 
agglutination may be defined as being a coagulation and coalescence of 
the external layers of agglutinable microbes under the influence of 
agglutinating serum. Agglutination in fact is a purely passive phe- 
nomenon. It is not constantly present, for certain microbes are devoid 
of it. It is not, properly speaking, a sign of infection, for a perfectly 
non- virulent microbe or a filtered culture may give rise to it. 
Hew Chromogenic Micrococcus.* — Dr. A. Cantani describes a chro- 
mogenic coccus which is designated, from the hue of the pigment, Micro- 
coccus corallinus. It w T as obtained from an impure influenza culture. It 
has no special arrangement ; it stains well with anilin dyes, and also by 
Gram’s method. It is an essential aerobe. It was cultivated on agar, 
in bouillon, and milk, but grew best on blood-agar. The optimum tem- 
perature is 20-25°. 
The pigment exists only in the cells, the medium not being stained 
at all. It is only sparsely soluble in water or alcohol, and not at all 
in ether or chloroform. Though M. corallinus does not grow at all at 
37°, yet it was found to be pathogenic to guinea-pigs and rabbits, 
these animals dying in 4-5 days with toxic symptoms accompanied by 
emaciation. 
Violet Bacillus. | — Prof. H. M. Ward describes a violet bacillus 
which was derived from the Thames. Morphologically it presents itself in 
the form of rodlets or filaments from 2—3 /x to 60 /x or more in length by 
about 0*75-0*8 /x broad. It may be quiescent or actively motile, and 
in old cultures involution forms are found, and the rodlets may be so 
short as to be almost cocci. Spore-formation was not observed. It is 
aerobic, liquefies gelatin, grows slowly, its optimum temperature is 20°, it 
is easily killed by direct sunlight, and is not pathogenic to animals. It 
was grown on gelatin-agar, potato, or broth and milk. The growth, at 
first white, develops later a violet pigment which is insoluble in water, 
but very soluble in alcohol. It is very stable, except in sunlight, is 
turned bluish- green on adding caustic alkali, the colour nearlyreturning 
by excess of acid. 
Polymorphic Bacillus from a case of Calculous Hephritis.f — Sig. 
G. Grixoni cultivated from the pus of a nephritic abscess a highly poly- 
morphic aerobic bacillus. Its growth on potato was very characteristic, 
the growth in 18 hours being dark brownish-red, and in a few days 
quite black. Gelatin was not liquefied. The bacillus is devoid of 
movement, and stains well by Gram’s method. Mice succumb in about 
30 hours after intraperitoneal injection. Babbits, guinea-pigs, and 
pigeons are refractory. 
Coli and Typhoid Bacteria are Uninuclear Cells.§ — By means of a 
special method of staining Dr. A.» Wagner claims that he has demon- 
strated that coli and typhoid bacteria are mononuclear cells. The 
* Centralbl. Bakt. u. Par., l te Abt., xxiii. (1898) pp. 308-11. 
f Arm. of Bot., xii. (1898) pp. 59-74 (1 pi.). 
X L a Biforma Med., 1893, No. 235-7. See Centralbl. Bakt. u. Par., l te Abt., 
xxiii. (1898) p. 421. 
§ Centralbl. Bakt. u. Par., l fe Abt., xxiii. (1898) pp. 433-8, 489-92 (2 pis.). 
