CONSERVATION OF BACILLUS "On the Proposals of Prof. R. E. Buchanan and

Bacteriologists sometimes have difficulty in understanding the implications of an Opinion issued by the Judicial Commission of the Inter-national Committee on Bacteriological Nomen-clature. To see what effect they will have on bacteriology in general, it may help to examine two of the Opinions. It is essential to make one point clear: official Opinions affect only the name applied to a par-ticular bacterium or group of bacteria; they do not circumscribe the use of a name, neither do they settle any problems of taxonomy. Tax-onomy, the orderly classification of organisms, is a problem for practical bacteriologists; when taxonomic groups have been defined, the prob-lems of nomenclature begin