The Friedmann treatment for tuberculosis : a report of the board appointed for its investigation / by John F. Anderson and Arthur M. Stimson.

  • Anderson, John F., 1871-1958
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Friedmann treatment for tuberculosis : a report of the board appointed for its investigation / by John F. Anderson and Arthur M. Stimson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    strains persisted in giving a moist growth through successive genera¬ tions at 37°. We have found the organism viable for a long time— after 10 months at 15°. Paraffined cotton plugs were commonly used to prevent drying out, though some tubes were capped with tin foil or plugged with corks, and some were simply stoppered with cotton in the ordinary way. With favorable media and temperatures growth was visible in 24 hours, and luxuriant after a week, but sometimes tubes planted with material from animals experimentally inoculated would show no change after a week or 10 days, colonies being found a week later. This may have been due partly to change in environment and partly to the sparsity of bacilli viable on the culture medium, as ordinary transplants which showed the more rapid growth were heavily inoculated as a rule. Glycerin egg proved to be the most favorable culture medium, but glycerin agar was used for routine transplants on account of its uniformity and the ease with which the bacillary mass was separated from its surface. The growth on blood serum and plain egg was disappointingly sparse. Growth was scant on plain agar and plain gelatin, but all the media containing glycerin showed good growth. At the higher temperatures this was dry, finely granular at first, becoming nodular after a few days. It was nearly white in color, slightly yellowish on glycerin egg and glycerin potato. The egg cultures at 0° were uniformly of a pinkish cream tint. Over the water of condensation in glycerin agar tubes and on the surface of glycerin broth cultures a pellicle is rapidly formed which in a week extends for 1 centimeter upward on the glass, the fluid remaining clear. This pellicle is also nearly white and wrinkled, becoming heavily rugous after 10 days. The appearance on solid media did not resemble that of human or bovine tubercle bacilli closely; the growth was more rapid, whiter in color even in old cultures, softer, and less dense. The apparent nodules were at first only rug9B in the super¬ ficial pellicle, the growth at the summit being but little thicker than at the base. In old broth cultures there was a distinct difference in odor between the Friedmann flasks and the flasks inoculated with tubercle bacilli; this was appreciated by all observers, but the description of the odors varied widely, some terming the odor of the FFF culture sweet and some sour. The Smith reaction curve in glycerin bouillon showed nothing to distinguish this bacillus from others of the acid-fast group. Six flasks each, of two strains, were inoculated and compared with other organisms. The result is shown in the accompanying chart (fig. 1). The second chart (fig. 2) gives three curves, one compounded from the two Friedmann curves in the preceding chart and the other two