A method is described for the preparation from hemolytic streptococci of extracts containing a soluble precipitating substance. By the use of such extracts, it is shown that nearly all members of this family yield a common precipitable substance. So far, therefore, as concerns the precipitin reaction, the hemolytic streptococci form a practically homogeneous group.

No abstract

No abstract

Oahu is one of the newly annexed H awaiian islands. I t possesses the best harbor in the whole group, and is therefore the most im portant loca tion for business, the chief city, Honolulu, containing 40,000 inhabitants and being situated about 2,100 iniles southwesterly from San Francisco. H a w a iia n A r c h ip e l a g o Ocean island. Midway island. Gambia shoal. Pearl and Howes reef.

The orderly dassification of non-hemolytic streptococci has met with the same difficulties as has that of the hemolytic group. Earlier studies failed entirely to recognize the distinction based upon the action of the organisms upon red cells, although this had been clearly pointed out as early as 1903. Later dassifications based upon erythrocyte and fermentation reactions (1-3) were arbitrary, but were made to serve as a fair basis for the comparison of different strains. The agglutination and agglutinin absorption methods were found roughly to confirm them, but clear-cut results were not secured (4-7).The complement fixation reaction, as employed by Floyd and Wolbach (4), failed to yield additional information. Using the clear centrifugate from broth cultures, Barnes (8) studied flocculation reactions in immune sera, but failed to clarify the subject perceptibly. His results were later shown by Krumwiede and Valentine to have been in reality thread reactions (9).Kinsella and Swift (10), employing antiformin antigens, showed by means of complement fixation that an inverse ratio exists between fixability of antigen and fixation range of corresponding antiserum, and were accordingly able to separate their organisms into two main groups, with a few connecting strains. Kinsella later (11) showed that one of these groups showed pronounced cross-fixation with the hemolytic family, whereas the other lacked this property entirely. Howell (12) was unable to confirm these results in tolo, although she found a certain amount of irregular cross-fixation among her organisms.