168 



AXTISEPTICS 



Gardner's observations remind one of the effect of col- 

 chicin upon plant cells. 



These morphological effects are in line with the ob- 

 servation by Eagle (1944) that "penicillin impairs the 

 viability of cultured spirochetes, as determined by their 

 failure to grow in subculture, long before their motility 

 has been demonstrably affected. There is at least a hun- 

 dred-fold disparity between the concentrations of peni- 

 cillin necessary to immobilize organisms in a given time 

 period, and those which render the organisms non- 

 viable. ' ' 



Waksman and Woodruff (1942) suggest that our cus- 

 tomary media may contain a substance inhibitory to anti- 

 biotic action. That would indicate a mode of action 

 similar to that of the sulfonamides. However, the dif- 

 ferences of inhibition in synthetic and in other complex 

 nutrient media are so small that they do not offer con- 

 vincing proof for this assumption. 



Welshimer, Krampitz and Werkman (1944) observed 

 an interference of penicillin with the dismutation of py- 



TABLE 35 



Effect of penicillin on the multiplication and final crop of various 

 eria. (Original data.) 



bactei 



