Five Cases of Infection of the Urinary Tract Due to a Member of the Group of Bacilli Named after Morgan

Abstract

5 cases of urinary infections are described, and shown to be caused by Morgan and Ledingham''s type XII bacteria. In the blood of the patients, agglutinins were demonstrated both for homologous and for heterologous strains. It is thus proved that these strains were the etiologic agents All 5 strains make a serological unity, as they are all agglutinated to titer limit in an immune Serum produced by one of them, and they absorb the same amount of agglutinins from this serum. All possess a latent faculty of fermenting lactose. When grown in a lactose-containing medium they can all be trained to split this sugar so intensely that they will alter the reaction of the Drigalsky plate and present themselves as acid colonies, while the colonies were all alkaline on isolation and while the stock culture still remains alkaline on streaking on the same medium. The author here proposes to modify Morgan and Ledingham''s scheme to include only microbes that are not found under other names. The earlier type I of these authors will remain type I and the other types will be arranged according to their increasing fermentative power. The 5 strains described here consequently will be gathered in type III. All types of Morgan bacilli are considered atypical types of B. coli and should be named Escherichia morgani, I, II, III, IV.