AN^ROBIC TREATMENT OF WOUNDS 215 



ment. The organism is a strict anaerobe, but, like 

 most of its kind, it will grow without anaerobic pre- 

 cautions in broth containing meat, after the method 

 of Tarozzi. This in itself is significant if compared 

 with the conditions in a wound. Such meat broth, 

 made from the recipe of Miss Robertson, is an ex- 

 tremely valuable medium for anaerobic cultures. In 

 this medium, if it be sown with passive spores of the 

 organism and incubated at 37 C., there is little change 

 until the third day^ when blackening and solution 

 of the meat begin, and an odour develops which is 

 unmistakably that of the salt-pack-treated wound. 

 Notice, by the way, the correspondence between the 

 period of germination in the meat broth and the time 

 taken for the odour to develop in the wound in both 

 it is two to three days. Experiments on animals 

 showed that the bacillus, now isolated in pure culture 

 by a method of dilution, from single organisms, was 

 non-pathogenic and non-toxic, however inoculated, 

 and that it had no power to invade the blood stream 

 or to attack living blood or tissues. 



It is impossible to overlook the bearing of these 

 observations upon the action of salt-packs, and as it 

 was thought that the packing and the outflow of serum 

 which results might provide anaerobic conditions spe- 

 cially favourable to the organism, it was determined 

 to introduce it, in pure culture, into a salt-packed 

 case which had failed to improve, and which, there- 

 fore, did not smell. No risk was involved in this, 

 as it was constantly present in just those very cases 

 which did best. The first time a case of unsuccessful 

 salt -packing presented itself it was decided by Dr. 

 Donaldson to sow it and repack the wound as before. 

 This time, in contrast with the previous trial, it fol- 

 lowed a perfectly normal and successful course, and 

 the organism was eventually recovered from the pus. 



