A New Vibriothrix.

Abstract

An organism has been recently isolated from human stool by me, the characters of which I will briefly describe.

Morphology.—In preparations made from the water condensation of recent glucose agar cultures the most diverse forms are seen: bacillus-like forms, curved vibrio-like forms, and very long spiral forms. In addition peculiar globular bodies of very different size, some very minute, others very large, being 3 or 4 microns in diameter, are present.

Motility.—The organism is motile.

Staining Reactions.—It is gram-negative, not acid-fast.

Cultural Characters and Biochemical Reactions.—Grows well on all ordinary laboratory media. On glucose agar and several other media the color of the growth is orange yellow. Serum is not liquefied. Gelatin seems to be very slowly liquefied. The organism does not produce gas in any sugar. In certain sugars it increases the alkalinity of the medium.

Pathogenicity.—The organism in all probability is not pathogenic. The subcutaneous inoculation into guinea pigs produces no symptoms.

Classification.—I believe this organism may be correctly placed in the genus Vibriothrix, a genus which I created in 1917 for an organism which I found in 1910 and which I described with various generic names, Spirillum zeylanicum 1910, Vibrio zeylanicus 1913, Bacillus zeylanicus, Spirobacillus zeylanicus. 1 This genus, which might perhaps be placed in the family Nocardiaceae, is characterized by the following features: Mycelial articles thin, of very different shape, bacillary, vibrio-like, spirillum-like, at times club ended. Globular or pear-shaped bodies of very variable size may be present. Gram-negative, not acid-fast.

The new Vibriothrix I have described in this paper differs from Vibriothrix zeylanica, as the colonies of the latter are white. I propose for this new Vibriothrix the name V. auriantica.