Experiments and observations on the vitality of the bacillus of typhoid fever and of sewage microbes in oysters and other shellfish : investigations on behalf of the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers, London / by E. Klein.

  • Klein, E. (Edward), 1844-1925.
Date:
[1905]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Experiments and observations on the vitality of the bacillus of typhoid fever and of sewage microbes in oysters and other shellfish : investigations on behalf of the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers, London / by E. Klein. 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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    former page as having been met with in certain oysters, the sewage microbe at present under consideration grows well at 37° C, and has not been met with in any of the numerous Drigalski plates from clean shellfish which I have had before me; and therefore, without attributing at present to it any special derivation, I can with confidence say that it is foreign to the shellfish per se, and when found in it may with proba- bility be taken to be derived from sewage or similar filth. In order to be able to refer to it, I propose to name it Bacillus streptoides, on account of its tendency to form chains. (5.) As a last and important microbe which I have met with, once in Drigalski plates inoculated with a trace of typical fluid typhoid stool and twice out of five samples of sewage of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, is a species which in aU. morphological and cultural characters coincides with the Bacillus feecalis (alkaligenes), first isolated by Petruschki from typhoid stools. The microbe which we isolated pro- duced on Drigalski plates distinctly blue colonies, which in their growth, form, and aspect might be mistaken for those of B. typhosus or of B. Gaertner; examined in the hanging drop the component bacilli were cylindrical, motile, and multiflagellated, and therefore not different from the B. typhosus or B. Gaertner; but they failed to become agglu- tinated with typhoid serum or with Gaertner serum in moderate dilution (1 : 20). On gelatine surface and in gela- tine shake culture the growth quite resembles that of B. typhosus, but here the similarity ends, for the microbe in question produces in litmus milk (at 37° C.) forthwith distinct alkali, the milk retaining its fluid character; it turns MacConkey fluid (at 37° C.) blue, and it produces no gas in glucose media; injected into guinea-pigs subcutaneously it exerted no pathogenic action. Dr. Durham * has given it as his opinion that the Bacillus fascalis (alkaligenes) of Petruschki is identical with B. Gaertner. As stated just now, and as has been well known to Petruschki, it has certain characters in common both with the B. typhosus as also the B. Gaertner. ♦ Brit. Med. Journal, December 17,1898.