Recent studies of the olive-tubercle organism / by Erwin F. Smith.

  • Erwin Frink Smith
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Recent studies of the olive-tubercle organism / by Erwin F. Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    punctures on the same plants healed promptly. During the entire seven months only one accidental infection occurred, and this one couUl be accounted for satisfactorily, i. e., it appeared lower down on a branch already inoculated and forming a tumor. Such being the results, no reasonable doubt remained as to the possibility of produc- ing the tumor with pure cultures of bacteria, nor from our studies was there any doubt as to the particular organism involve*!. Our e.xperi- ments fully confirmed Savastano’s statements respecting the bacterial origin of the tumor, but the parasite was white, not yellow as stated in literature. These facts were set forth in December, 1903, in an address before the Society for Plant Moqihologj' and Physiology, illustrated by stereopticon and by inoculate*! plants, an abstract of the .same being published in Science. During the four years which have elapse*! since this preliminary note, many u*l*litional successful in*)culati*)ns have been made (the t*)tal number *)f in*>culations now e.\cee*ling 500), and occasional acci- *lental infections have also ajipeare*! on the exjierimental olives, all of the ])lants being in *»ne place from the start. These latter, however, have been c*)inparatively few an*l in no way c*mfusing. xVbout 150 olive plants of several varieties were use*l for these e.xperiments. They were ro*>te*l cuttings fr*)in s*)un*l plants which had been grown in one of the hothouses of the Dejiart ment of Agriculture for many years. OTHER RESEARCHES. About the same time as the writer, Ruggero SchifT, subsequently known as SchifMliorgini, liegan experimenting on the olive tubercle in Italy, llis first paper was jmblished in German in 1904. This was f*)ll*nve*l in 1905 by a secoml ]>aper in German ami by a longer paper in Italian, wherein he furnishe*! a*lditional evidence of the same charac- ter as that given in his first paper. D*)ctor Schiff claimed to have *)btaine*l successful infections with a schizomycete totally different fmm that isolate*! in our laboratory'. He also stated that cultures of the Bacillus oleae are flocculate*! or agglutinated by juice from tuber- cles, but not by juice from soun*l parts of the plant. Fortunately, ho *lescribe*l his organism so carefully that no *loubt remains as to exact ly what he meant by it. In 1905 the writer called attention to the *liscrepancy between his own ami Schiff’s stmlies, stating some of the j)*)ints of *lisagreement, an*l venturing the statement that no olive knots could be produced with jnire cultures of Schiff’s organism. About this time Dr. Ame*leo Berlese, an Italian, became intereste*! in kn*)ts *>n *)live trees; *listinguishe*l, incorrect ly itwouhl seem, two dis- tinct forms *)f tulx’rcle; an*l cultivate*! from the or*linary form a yellow *)rganism, inclined to orange, supj)osc*l by him to be Bacillus uleos