Bacteria and a Spirochaete (Text-figure 2).

Smears of the peripheral blood of three of four specimens of the humpback whale, Megaptera nodosa (Bonaterre), obtained at Tory Channel whaling station during June, 1948, were found to contain great numbers of bacteria. Streptococci (Text-fig. 2, Fig. 1), cocci (Text-fig. 2, Figs. 2, 3, etc.). and bacilli (Text-fig. 2, Fig. 4), also a single spirochaete (Text-fig. 2, Fig. 5), were encountered.

All the bacteria stain a dense blue with Giemsa. The cocci range in diameter from 0.8μ to 1.7μ, and closely resemble the bodies described by Laurie (1933) as X organisms. Laurie found his organisms in all samples of blood which he took from adult and foetal blue and fin whales, describing them as having an indefinite but approximately spherical shape, and a diameter of from 0.5μ to 2.0μ. Although not overlooking the possibility that their presence in the blood might have resulted from post-mortem contamination, he advanced a theory that they might be responsible for a kind of nitrogen "fixation," their presence in the blood thus serving to protect the whale from caisson sickness. Subsequently, however, Laurie (1935) stated that further research had failed to support his page 3 hypothesis, and Scholander (1940) could find no X organisms in blood drawn from whales immediately after death. The latter author often saw bacteria in blood from older carcases, and he observed numerous cocci in blood from a sperm whale which had been dead for some time.

A smear from one of the examples of Meyaptera nodosa studied at Tory Channel is completely free from bacteria. It shows no signs of external contamination, but the other three, in which the bodies resembling Laurie's X organisms are present, are all obviously contaminated. Dried globules of fatty material are present, and it is in the vicinity of these that the densest concentrations of bacteria occur. Smears of the blubber itself contain very great numbers of bacteria similar in every respect to those occurring in the blood. It is to be expected that the blood of harpooned whales will often come to contain immense numbers of bacteria, in addition to other contaminants, as a consequence of the organic destruction wrought by the explosion of the charge. Bacteria from the alimentary tract, from other internal sources, or from the surface of the body might well become widespread in the circulatory system during the time elapsing between the explosion of the charge and the failure of heart action. One spread through the bloodstream, these organisms would multiply rapidly enough to be present in great numbers by the time the whale became accessible to a biologist working on a factory ship or at a shore base. Even blood taken directly from vessels under sterile conditions would then, of course, be contaminated. This hypothesis affords an explanation for the presence of bacteria and a spirochaete in the blood preparations from the humpback whale. The single example of this species recorded as having a normal blood picture was. like some of the whales examined by Scholander, dealt with before bacteria introduced into the bloodstream had had time to multiply throughout the vessels.