Studies in Bacillus Welchii, with special reference to classification and to its relation to diarrhea.

  • Simonds, J.P.
Date:
September 27, 1915
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Studies in Bacillus Welchii, with special reference to classification and to its relation to diarrhea. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    the gas phlegmon bacillus and the non-motile butyric acid bacillus of Schattenfroh and Grassberger underwent the same change {i.e., trans- formation into a 'richly sporulating actively motile bacillus') and became identical with B. amylobacter The process by which the transformation was brought about was one of selection. Cultures containing spores (Schattenfroh and Grassberger (321) used egg heated for one hour under thirty pounds' pressure, Bredemann (37) used potato to which chalk had been added) were heated to 80°C. for thirty minutes, and transfers made to new tubes of the same kind of medium. By repeating this process a motile sporulating strain was pro- duced. Even the location of the spore was changed, becoming terminal where it had formerly been central. The bacilli at|the same time became Dimorphic Butyric Acid Bacilli (Denaturable) Rauschbrand bacillus Terminal spore form, putrefactive type 1 Related to 1 B. putrificus of Dienstock Denaturable, non-motile, non-sporulating butyric acid bacilli Clostridial forms (many gas phlegmon bacilli] I Related to I Anaerobic, motile butyric acid bacilli Chart 1. thinner and resembled B. putrificus. These unusual results were, as already stated, confirmed by Bredemann. Schattenfroh and Grassberger (321, 322) sum up their conclusions from their former work with the declaration that the so called Rauschbrand bacillus is a pure butyric acid bacillus which shows a double form, a sporu- lating, clostridial, motile, flagellated form which contains granules staining blue with iodine; and a non-motile, non-flagellated, non-sporulating form which does not contain iodine-staining granules. These two types differ further in the shape of the colonies on agar, in pathogenicity, in toxin formation, and in the amount of butyric acid produced. But they can be transformed one into the other, more easily from the non-motile, non- sporulating form to the motile, sporulating variety than in the reverse direc- tion. Chart I, modified by Sittler (340) from the more complicated table r