During the past several years various attempts to isolate a microorganism of etiologic significance from the synovial fluids, tissues or blood of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (atrophic, deforming arthritis) have yielded peculiarly inconsistent results. In the hands of most investigators a rather high percentage of cultures has remained sterile, while in the positive cultures a variety of micro-organisms have been obtained. While streptococci have most frequently been isolated by various groups of laboratory workers, other micro-organisms have also been obtained, and the results as a whole are not at all comparable as to either the kind or the number of organisms isolated. The one exception to this general statement is found in the reports of Gray and Gowen and of Gray, Fendrick and Gowen,1 who repeated and confirmed the cultural work of Cecil, Nicholls and Stainsby, using a modification of the last author's technic.
Cecil, Nicholls and Stainsby2 reported