882 CLOSTRIDIUM 



irregularly lobate edge with very fine dentations ; greyish-yellow by reflected, 

 greyish-blue by transmitted light ; butyrous and easily emulsifiable. 



Deep Olucose Agar Shake. — 4 days at 37° C. Good growth, gas produced, and agar 

 disrupted. Colonies throughout medium, varying in appearance ; usually resemble 

 snowflakes ; some have an opaque, brownish centre with a finely filamentous or 

 fluffy periphery ; some have the appearance of a conventional bursting grenade. 



Horse Blood Agar Plates. — 3 days at 37° C. Large spreading colonies, as on nutrient 

 agar ; and round, slightly umbonate colonies, with entire or undulate edge and 

 a finely granular surface ; about 3 mm. in diameter. Zone of /3-haemolysis coinci- 

 dent with colony. Centre of colony is more opaque, periphery more translucent. 



Agar Slope. — 4 days at 37° C. TMn spreading film of growth, or poor to moderate, partly 

 confluent, shghtly raised, gUstening, greyish-yellow growth with finely granular 

 surface, and an edge made up of single colonies. 



Oelatin.—S days at 37° C. Liquefaction. 



Broth. — 4 days at 37° C. Poor growth with no turbidity and a granulo-powdery deposit, 

 partly disintegrating ; slight rancid odour. In glucose broth there is an early 

 turbidity, which clears after a day or two with the deposit of the organisms in a 

 flocculent mass. 



Loeffler's Serum.— 15 days at 37° C. Moderate, confluent, slightly raised growth ; no 

 digestion. 



Coagulated Egg. — 15 days at 37° C No digestion. 



Cooked Meat Medium. — 15 days at 31° C. Moderate growth ; fluid turbid ; gas produced, 

 meat turned slightly pink or bleached ; no digestion ; rancid odour. 



Resistance. — Destroyed by moist heat at 105° C. in 6 minutes. 



Metabolic. — Strict anaerobe. Opt. temp. 37° C. jS-hsemolysis on horse blood agar plates. 

 Haemolyses human and sheep's red cells. Nutritional : grows fairly well in ordinary 

 media ; growth improved by glucose. No growth in bile-salt media. Toxin 

 produced. Forms a fibrinolysin. 



Biochemical. — Acid and gas in glucose, and maltose, not in mamiitol, lactose, sucrose, 

 or saUcm. Glycerol fermented by Type A but not by Type B or C strains. Indole — ; 

 M.R. — ; V.P. — ; nitrites not produced in nitrate broth ; NH3 — ; HjS + ; 

 M.B. reduction — ; catalase — . Litmus milk : acid production in 1 to 5 days 

 with gas formation ; after 10 to 30 days a clot appears in the form of fine flocculi. 

 No digestion. 



Antigenic Structure. — Agglutinins act on homologous strains only ; auto-agglutination 

 frequent. Antitoxin can be produced by injection of horses. 



Pathogenicity. — Produces a potent exotoxin. One agent in causation of gas gangrene in 



man. Responsible for one type of braxy in Europe, for black disease in Australia, 



and for a non-fatal osteomyeUtis of the humerus and femur of Dutch East Indian 



buffaloes. Experimentally it is pathogenic for guinea-pigs, mice and rabbits. 



0-25-1 ml. of a 24-hour broth culture injected intramuscularly into a guinea-pig 



causes death in 24 to 48 hours. P.M. muscles are red and softened ; httle gas 



production, but a spreading gelatmous oedema. BaciUi found at site of inoculation, 



and occasionally on siu-face of hver. Blood cultures may or may not be positive. 



(See p. 871.) 



(See Weinberg and Seguin 1918, Report 1919, Wolf 1919-20, HaU 1922, Turner 1930, 



Mieszner, Meyn and Schoop 1931, Ivraneveld 1930, Zeissler and Kraneveld 1929, Kraneveld 



and Djaenoedin 1933, Scott, Tvuner and Vawter 1933, Djaenoedin and Kraneveld 1936, 



Turner and Bales 1941.) 



Clostridium chauvoei 



Isolation. — First distinctive description by Arloing, Cornevin and Thomas in 1879 (Arloing 



et al. 1887). 

 Habitat. — Lives in soil. 



