25 Sternberg's careful experimentation seems to show the identity of Neisser's gonococcus with the Micrococcus ureæ, commonly found in decomposing urine.
Bacterium termo is regarded by leading authorities as the special ferment or causative agent of putrefaction26 (Billroth, Cohn).
26 Others have referred putrefaction to vibriones, less precisely described.
| FIG. 2. |
| Bacteria: a, zoogloea of Bacterium termo; b, pellicle of bacteria from surface of beer; c, Bacterium lineola, free; d, zoogloea form of B. lineola. |
Bacillus includes, hypothetically at least, several species; as Bacillus subtilis, the innocent hay-fungus; Bacillus anthracis, the microbe of malignant pustule (anthrax, milzbrand, charbon) and the splenic fever of sheep; Bacillus typhosus (Klebs, Eberth, Meyer) of typhoid fever; Bacillus lepræ (Hansen, Neisser, Cornil, Koebner) of leprosy;27 Bacillus malariæ, reported as having been demonstrated28 by Klebs and Tommasi Crudeli, Marchand, Ceri, and Ziehl; Bacillus tuberculosis (Koch, Baumgarten, 1882); the bacillus of malignant oedema (Gaffky, Brieger, Ehrlich); that of syphilis (Aufrecht, Birch-Hirschfeld,29 Morrison); of glanders (Loeffler, Schuetz, Israel, Bouchard); of pertussis (Burger); besides the Actinomycosis of Israel, Ponfick,30 Bollinger, and others. Koch has very recently (1883) been reported to have discovered in Egypt the bacillus of cholera.
27 Dr. H. D. Schmidt of New Orleans, an experienced pathologist, reported (Chicago Medical Journal and Examiner, April, 1882) that critical examination of numerous specimens of tissues from three cases of leprosy under his care failed to verify the existence of bacilli as characteristic of that disease.
28 Not certainly, however, as shown by Sternberg (Bulletin of Nat. Board of Health, Supplement No. 14, July 23, 1881). Dr. Salisbury of Ohio in 1866 made a series of observations, on the basis of which he asserted the discovery of a genus of malarial microphytes, which he referred to the family of Palmellæ.
The oval and spherical organisms described by Richard and Laveran as found in the blood of malarial patients resembled micrococci rather than bacilli.
29 More recently described by him as micrococci.