Abstract
IN a letter bearing this title in your last issue (p. 265) Mr. Downes refers to the recent publication by Messrs. Crookes, Odling, and Tidy, of some experiments which they have made on the vitality of the Bacillus anthracis in water, with regard to which I should like to call attention to the fact that this subject has during the past three years been investigated by various experimenters, including Koch, Cornil, and Babes, Nicati and Rietsch. Within the past two months no less than three papers have been published on this subject, two of them in Germany by Dr. Wolfhügel and Meade Bolton respectively, whilst the third, by myself, “On the Multiplication of Micro-organisms,” was communicated to the Royal Society at the meeting in June last. In this paper I have recorded a number of experiments made both with the mixtures of organisms found in various natural waters, as well as with three well-characterised forms which are associated with disease, viz. Koch's “Comma” spirillum of Asiatic cholera, Finkler-Prior's “Comma” spirillum of European cholera, and the Bacillus pyocyaneus, which produces the greenish-blue colouring matter frequently present in abscesses. The methods of research which have been independently selected both by Wolfhügel, Meade Bolton, and myself, are identical, and consist in the examination, by gelatine platecultivation, of waters purposely impregnated with the organisms in question. This method is obviously the one which most recommends itself for the purpose, as it not only enables one to ascertain the presence or absence of the organisms, but also to quantitatively follow their multiplication or reduction. I may mention that these three organisms present great differences in their behaviour under similar circumstances; thus the Bacillus pyocyaneus is possessed of far greater vitality in water than either of the other two, its presence being demonstrable even in distilled water after fifty-three days, in numbers exceeding manyfold those originally introduced. Koch's “Comma” spirillum, on the other hand, was in the purest forms of potable water no longer demonstrable after the ninth day, whilst in London sewage it was found in largely multiplied numbers after twentynine days; whilst Finkler's spirillum could in no case be detected after the first day, and frequently not even on the day of inoculation. A curious phenomenon, which my experiments, as well as those of Wolfhügel and Meade Bolton have brought to light, is that when organisms of this kind, which are not the natural inhabitants of water, are introduced into this medium, a large proportion of them are frequently at first destroyed, a greater or less multiplication in their numbers often subsequently taking place.
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FRANKLAND, P. “The Duration of Germ-Life in Water”. Nature 34, 289 (1886). https://doi.org/10.1038/034289b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/034289b0
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