VIBRION SEPTIQVE 535 
from the liver will show the characteristic organisms. Spores will not 
be found. Vibrion septiqiie produces striking involution forms as a 
rule under similar conditions. 
Seroloc/ical.— The demonstration of a soluble poison during the 
first eighteen to twenty-foiu* hours of growth is very suggestive, 
especially when the material induces necrotic edema upon injection. 
Diagnosis by specific agglutinins, lysins, or by complement-fixation 
is not practicable in the light of current knowledge. 
VIBRION SEPTIQUE. 
The anaerobic })acillus known as Vibrion septique,^ the bacillus of 
malignant edema,' or B. edematis maligni,^ is the oldest known member 
of that group of organisms which cannot grow in pure culture in the 
presence of oxygen. The bacillus was first obtained by Pasteur from 
the blood of cattle; upon injection into experimental animals, it pro- 
duced acute septicemia, with great edema at the site of inoculation. 
The infection was reproduceable from animal to animal. Koch 
isolated the organism from garden soil, and studied anew the lesions 
induced by it in experimental laboratory animals. He called attention 
to the primary importance of the violent edema as the essential patho- 
logical lesion, and ascribed secondary significance to the generalized 
sepsis. For this reason he abandoned the name ^'ibrion septique, and 
called the anaerobe the "Bacillus of malignant edema." 
The name of the organism in accordance with the rules of botanical 
nomenclature is yet to be established. The term "Vibrion" is not 
applicable in the modern classification of bacteria, but the name B. 
edematis maligni is also open to objection, inasmuch as trinomial 
names, except for very definite cases, are not justifiable. The name 
Vibrion septique is given preference in the following description. 
The imperfection of methods for the study of bacteria available at 
the time Vibrion septique was first isolated, together with the difficulty 
of obtaining anaerobes in pure culture, resulted in incomplete descrip- 
tions of the organism which have caused much discussion in later 
years. Perhaps the greatest single factor in this confusion depends 
upon the reactions ascribed to Vibrion septique in gelatin and other 
protein media freed from more than minimal amounts of carbohydrates. 
The early cultures were unquestionably mixed with proteolytic bac- 
teria, as B. sporogenes, and it is to the proteolytic activity of this 
contaminant, or one similar to it, that the supposedly proteolytic 
properties of Vibrion septique must be ascribed. It is now generally 
conceded that Vibrion septique is not to be classed with the proteo- 
lytic anaerobic bacteria.* In its general chemical relations it resembles 
rather closely B. welchii. 
' Pasteur and Joubert: Bull. d. I'Acad. de med., 1877, 2d serie, 6, 781. Pasteur, 
Joubert and Chamberland: Compt. rend. Acad. Sci., 1878, 86, 1037. 
- Koch: Mitt. a. d. kais. Gesamte, 1881, 1, 48. 
' Fliigge: Die Mikroorganismen, Leipzig, 1896, 2, 234. 
* Robertson: British Med. Jour., 1918, i, 583. 
