SUPPURATIVE CELLULITIS DUE TO STREPTOCOCCUS INFECTION. 175 
' fully compared in parallel cultures and found, so far as this 
method enabled one to determine, to be identical. The organ¬ 
ism was a true streptococcus. Morphologically it grew in long 
chains in bouillon and agar. It stained readily with aniline 
dyes, but it did not retain all of its color when treated after 
Gram’s method. Each coccus or segment seemed to be dis¬ 
tinct. Many of them gave a decided polar stain, although this 
was not uniformly the case. In sections of the liver of inoculated 
rabbits it appeared in the blood spaces in large numbers and in 
long chains, but in cover-glass preparations they seemed to be 
quite broken up into shorter chains, diplococci and single micro¬ 
cocci. 
In bouillon it grew in clumps or grayish masses, which set¬ 
tled to the bottom or sides of the tube if they were inclined. 
After several generations a more uniform cloudiness was im¬ 
parted to the bouillon. Milk was not changed in appearance. 
On agar the isolated colonies were about 1.5 mm. in diameter 
with a convex brownish centre surrounded by a thin spreading 
growth. It did not grow on potato and very feebly on gelatin. 
In alkaline bouillon containing i per cent, of the sugars ordi¬ 
narily used (dextrose, saccharose and lactose) the reaction be¬ 
came .strongly acid, but gas was not formed.* The streptococci 
were soon destroyed in the acids formed in these cultures. In 
the fermentation tube the growth was quite vigorous in the 
open bulb, but exceedingly feeble in the closed branch. 
This organism was very sensitive to the action of disinfect¬ 
ants and it possessed a low thermal death point, an exposure to 
moist heat at a temperature of 55° C. for 5 minutes destroyed it. 
(These tests were not repeated.) 
In rabbits it produced a rapidly fatal septicaemia, destroying 
life in from 36 to 48 hours. Guinea-pigs were not affected un¬ 
less large doses were injected into the peritoneal cavity. Unfor¬ 
tunately, this streptococcus stopped growing very suddenly be- 
* In this respect it conforms with the action of all the streptococci with which I am 
familiar. This power of the streptococci to break up the sugars forming acids without 
gas seems to be of value in differentiating doubtful streptococci from certain micrococci 
which often appear in short or longer chains. 
