W. L. HOLMAN 105 



recovered from high dilutions of the saliva, as Hall and Wing' have shown, and be- 

 cause of its morphological resemblance to forms of B. influenzae might very well be 

 overlooked. I would suggest this as a possible explanation of the rather infrequent ob- 

 servation of gas production by B, influenzae. 



The group of B. botiilinus and the effect of associated bacteria particularly on its 

 toxin has received considerable attention. Hall and Peterson^ found that certain acid- 

 producing aerobes inhibited toxin production in glucose but not in non-carbohydrate 

 media, and some of these aerobes actually destroyed toxin in glucose broth. It would 

 appear that the acid must be in the nascent state since acid itself was inefTective. 

 Jordan and Dack'^ found that a mixture of a large amount of B. sporogcnes with B. 

 botulinus interfered with the development of toxin and might cause its early disap- 

 pearance. Francillon'' studied the same problem. He found that Staphylococcus au- 

 reus, B. coli, B. proteus vulgaris, and other bacteria permitted the growth of B. botu- 

 linus in open tubes of plain and glucose bouillon, but the growth was never as good as 

 under other anaerobic conditions. A moist-meat medium gave somewhat better 

 growth. Toxin was found in the mixed cultures in bouillon and meat, the amount vary- 

 ing with the aerobe. The B. pyrcyaneus mixture gave no toxin in the bouillon but a 

 strong one from the meat. There was but little effect on the toxin by two weeks' con- 

 tact with B. proteus, B. coli, or B. pyocyaneus. Dack^ reported the gradual destruction 

 of filtered toxin by the growth of B. sporogencs and other proteolytic and non-pro- 

 teolytic anaerobes. 



Passini'' found that a putrefactive anaerobe B. putrificus verrucosus destroyed B. 

 tuberculosis in nine days. The effect of similar anaerobes on the survival of anthrax 

 spores in dead animals has been extensively studied. Among a great many other in- 

 teresting anaerobic and aerobic synergistic phenomena I mention a few. Ome- 

 liansky^ studied the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen as Winogradsky^ had done years 

 before. He noted that in the surface layers of the soil numerous organisms used the 

 oxygen and created anaerobic conditions for the B. Clostridium pasteurianum, but in 

 addition some of these accompanying forms also supplied carbon compounds for the 

 anaerobe. The Azotcbacter being alkaligenic used up such products from the anaerobe 

 as butyric acid and thus favored the synergistic process. The other aerobes may at 

 times do harm by depriving the Azotobacter of oxygen. These two nitrogen-fixing 

 forms, one aerobic, the other anaerobic, worked very well together. The work of Kam- 

 merer'and his associates gave interesting examples of synergistic action. They observed 

 that emulsions of human feces reduced pure bilirubin and mesobilirubin to urobilin 

 but had no action on biliverdin and that the feces of herbivora did not have this action 



' Hall, I. C, and Wing, H. U.: Am. J. Pub. Health, 15, 770. 1925. 



^ Hall, I. C, and Peterson, E.: /. Bact., 8, 319. 1923. 



3 Jordan, E. O., and Dack, G. M.: /. Infect. Dis., 35, 576. 1924. 



■* Francillon, M.: Arch.f. Hyg., 95, 121. 1925. 



5 Dack, G. M.: /. Infect. Dis., 38, id^. 1926. 



^ Passini, F.: CenlralU.f. Bakterlol., I, 81, 447. 1926. (Ref.) ^r'* '» \. J( /*\ 



7 Omeliansky, V. L.: Arch, de sc. biol., 18, i. 1915. S^ -y^\ 



' Winogradsky, S.: /oc. a7. ' Kammerer, H.: /oc. a7. ' ,.^ O,' 



