Introduction 



At the meeting of the Society of American Bacteriologists in Houston in 

 1956, a numer of papers dealing with bacterial spores were put together 

 in one section and they engendered so much discussion that it could not 

 be completed during the time allotted. As a result, a group of the inter- 

 ested persons got together for a "rump" session one evening and continued 

 the discussion into the early hours of the morning. This assured us that 

 a conference on spores would be worthwhile and as a result the members 

 participating in this discussion suggested that I try to arrange such a con- 

 ference at the University of Illinois some time during the fall of 1956. Fol- 

 lowing correspondence with Dr. Roger Reid of the Office of Naval Re- 

 search, a spore conference was finally arranged to be held at Allerton Park 

 on October 11-12, 1956, under the auspices of the University of Illinois 

 and with the support from the Office of Naval Research. An attempt was 

 made to invite to this conference all the persons in the United States who 

 were actively engaged in research on sporulation, spore germination and 

 the enzymes of spores. Also, persons were invited from Canada who were 

 interested in spore cytology, as well as Mrs. Powell from Porton. England. 

 The papers presented herein are those given at the spore conference to- 

 gether with the formal and informal discussions. 



The people participating in this conference expressed their sincere ap- 

 preciation to the Office of Naval Research for making this conference pos- 

 sible, and all of them felt that the discussions stimulated more widespread 

 investigations into the properties of the bacterial spore. 



H. Orin Halvorson 



Editor. 



Chairman, Committee on Arrangements 



