EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 



455 



TABLE III — Fermenting Capacity of four Different Strains, after Marshall and Farrand. 



*These numbers mean that 6, 9, 2, etc., cells respectively had been transferred into 100 cc. of milk. 



The table lias four section.s each of which represents a different strain 

 of Bacterium lactis acidi. Tlie average fermenting capacity from all 



14 

 data is 14X10-'°, i. e. 10,000,000 of one milligram of lactic acid have been 

 produced by the average cell in one hour. This amount seems ndicu- 

 lously small, but it is really an enormous amount coiiij)ared with the 

 weight of the cell. MacNeal, I^atzer and Kerr* found that 1 g. of dried 

 coli bacteria contained from 40 to 57X10-" cells, or in other words, the 



dry matter of one cell weighs approximately 50 X 10-" g or 2X10-'° mg. 

 Bactena having approximately SO to 90% moisture, the actual weight of 

 a living cell of 5. coli is Vjetween 10 and 20X10-'° mg. Bacteriuvi lactis 

 acidi is smaller than B. coli. The comparison of the data shows that 

 each cell forms about its own weight of lactic acid in one hour. 



Considering each strain by itself, a great discrepancy of results is 

 quite evident. Three figures, namely 3c, 4c and 4f, are ten times as 



♦.Journal Infe;-tious Di.s.aes Vol. 6 (1909) p. 148. 



