SPIRILLA RESEMBLING CHOLERA. 329

covered with a moist, thick, slimy coating, which may
have a slightly yellowish tinge.

The cultures upon potato are also very different from
those of cholera, for instead of a temperature of 37° C.
"being required for a rapid development, the Finkler and
Prior spirilla grow rapidly at the room-temperature, and
produce a grayish-yellow, slimy, shining layer, which
may cover the whole of the culture-medium.

Blood-serum is rapidly liquefied by the growth of the
organism.

Buchner has shown that in media containing some
glucose an acid reaction is produced.

The spirillum does not grow well, if at all, in milk,
and speedily dies in water.

The organism does not produce indol.

The spirillum can be stained well by the ordinary
dyes, and seems, like the cholera spirillum, to have a
special affinity for the aqueous solution of fuchsin.

In connection with this bacillus the question of patho-
genesis is a very important one. At first it was sus-
pected that it was, if not the spirillum of cholera itself,
a very closely allied organism. I/ater it was regarded
as the cause of cholera nostras. At present its exact
pathological significance is a question. It was in one
case secured by Knisl from the feces of a suicide, and
has been found in carious teeth by Miiller.

When injected into the stomach of guinea-pigs treated
according the method of Koch, about 30 per cent, of the
animals die, but the intestinal lesions produced are not
the same as those produced by "the cholera spirillum.
The intestines in such cases are pale and filled with
watery material having a strong putrefactive odor. This
fluid teems with the spirilla.

It seems very unlikely, from the collected evidence,
that the Pinkler and Prior spirillum is associated with
pathogenesis in the human species. As Frankel points
out, it is probably a frequent and harmless inhabitant of
the human intestine.