- Volume 11, Issue 1, 1961

A definition of the species in the family Enterobacteriaceae is given: “A species is a group of related sero-fermentative phage-types”.

1. In our work we have studied morphological, cultural and biochemical characteristics of 68 strains of Serratia marcescens. 2. We propose that the genus Serratia may have only one species. 3. We propose to acknowledge strain BS 303 (ATCC 13880) as the neotype culture of Serratia marcescens Bizio.

Here are listed the reasons determining the Soviet classification of the dysentery bacteria and the major differences from the International Schema of the International Subcommittee on Enterobacteriaceae. The Soviet arrangement is based on typospecific antigens irrespective of group variations of antigens.

Gemella gen. nov. is proposed as the name of a new monotypic genus, with type species Gemella haemolysans (Thjötta and Böe 1938) Berger (basionym Neisseria haemolysans Thjötta and Böe 1938). The genus Neisseria includes the aerobic, oxidase-positive species, Gemella the aerobic, oxidase-negative species and Veillonella the anaerobic, oxidase-negative species.