The Identity of Bacterium Columbensis Castellani

Abstract

The organism originally isolated by Castellani (1914) from "collumbensis fever" and later (Castellani, 1938) assigned by him to the gentus Salmonella, has been infrequently reported in the Western Hemisphere. The only records that have been located are a note reporting Taylor's (1924) isolation of what is now strain 595 of the American Type Cullltuire Colleetion, the record in the catalogue of that collection mentioning the isolation by Shaw of their strain 4298, and an indirect reference by Jordan and M\IcBroom (1934) to the occurrence of the organism in Panama. The organism has been encountered in Ceylon, in the tropics of Asia and Africa, in the Balkans, and also in ILondon, and reported in the papers of Fernando (1935), Fuille (1915), Giuigni and Pistoni (1936), Guiidetti (1937), Jacono (1921), Kelaart, (1925), ILurie (1916), \Marmo (1922), Scotti (1936, 1939), Spaar (1915), and Thomas (1936). The fifth edition of Bergey's (1939) -Manual lists Salmonella colunmbensis in the appendix to that genuis, wN-ithouit a statement of its characteristies. It is explained that the species in that list aIre placed there beeause "the relationships of many of these are not clear." Certainly the characteristics recorded by Castellani and Chalmers (1919), by Castellani (1938), and in the earlier editions of the Bergev Manual, (1o not place the species within the genuis Salmonella as at present de-fined. A grotup of cultures has been studied in this laboratory which seem to be stiains of this little-known speeies. Their comparison with the strains from the American Type (ulture Collection and with the published descriptions, plermits a restatement of the species characteristics and provides an opportunity to con-sider its generic position. EXPERIMENTAL A study has been made of 18 strains, ineluding 4 which may be considered representative of the species since they came from the American Type Cuilture Collection. The origin of the cultures is indicated in table 1. They form a fairly homogeneous group having the following characteristics: Short rods, gram-negative, motile or nonmotile. Imvic + +--. Gelatin-negative, sul-fide-negative, tartrate-agar-negative, turea not decomposed. Litmus milk slowly made alkaline. Gas produieed from carbohydrate. The following carbohy,drates are fermentedl by\1 all 18 strains: arabinose, galactose, glucose, levulose, mannitol, mannose, rhamnose, and trehalose. None of the strains fermented cellobiose, (lextrin, inositol, inulin, lactose, alphamethylglucoside, raffinose, starch, or sulcIrose. Aesculin and dulcitol were fermented by approx-79