A new Acid-Fast Streptothrix, Pathogenic to Man and Animals

Abstract

The numerous additions to the group of Streptothrices which have been recently made, and the close resemblance which the majority of these newly described forms bear to one another, render it by no means an easy task to assure oneself that a freshly isolated member of this group is one that has not previously been met with and described. A curious fact also, which soon strikes anyone who investigates the literature relating to this group of micro-organisms, is that in very few of these has the particular form described by one author been met with by another. While great interest to the bacteriologist naturally attaches to any new species, whatever its source, the group of those which are pathogenic in their action on man, on animals, or on both, are, ipso facto, of more general importance. To this last category belongs the new member of the group which we have isolated from a fatal case of lung disease and pericarditis in man.