THE SEROLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION OF FUSIFORM BACILLI

Abstract

By a new method, performed with an "inoculating machine," the author isolated 18 cultures of fusiform bacilli in pure culture from human blood-agar plates inoculated with pathological material and incubated in the P anaerobic jar; As-free blood was used. Microscopic examination of the plate for minute contaminating colonies is necessary. Pure cultures of fusiform bacilli give a faint, characteristic odor. All of the organisms were constantly Gram-negative, non-motile, and obligate anaerobic. In rabbits immunized by repeated intravenous injections of massive doses of young living cultures and bled 3 days after the last injection, high titers were easily secured. Testing very young fresh cultures of fusiform bacilli against these immune sera, 3 types were found, which are described. Type IV, B. fusiformis, was very hard to isolate and cultivate, and was identified only by its morphological and growth characteristics, since no antigen could be prepared. No evidence was found in support of the theory that fusiform bacilli and spirilla are stages in the life history of a single organism, nor were so-called "external granules" ever seen, except in impure cultures. Neither spirilla nor external granules were found to have any part in the life history of fusiform bacilli.