XXXII. On the differential diagnosis of the plague bacillus from certain allied organisms

Extract

We have no desire to claim for the tests described above that they will be found applicable to every strain of organism belonging to any particular group. Our experiments were necesarily limited to a few races of each—many of these being probably avirulent from long subcultivation on artificial media. We merely wish to indicate the general methods we would adopt in any case of difficult bacteriological diagnosis, although as a matter of fact the only tests we found it necessary to use in the course of our work were the method of cutaneous and subcutaneous inoculation into animals and the stalactite test.

The tests referred to in this paper may be summarised thus:

1. The plague bacillus gives a fairly characteristic type of colony on neutral agar; it forms typical stalactites in neutral broth; it gives certain definite fermentation reactions.

2. B. pseudotuberculosis resembles B. pestis more closely than any other organism. The animal test on white rats is probably the best for its differentiation.

3. Bacilli of the haemorrhagic septicaemia group appear to be inhibited in their growth in media containing sodium taurocholate.

4. Bacilli of the B. enteritidis (Gaertner) group are the most readily distinguished of all; the appearance of agar cultures, the negative stalactite test, and their fairly definite fermentation sugar reactions are sufficient to mark them off from the plague bacillus.