190 HELEN R. ODELL 



only 9 cases in which the Drigalski medium proved more 

 advantageous. 



The original work which was carried on in this laboratory in 

 the early part of 1916 consisted in the inoculation, with swabs 

 received with the routine throat cultures, of Loeffler's coagulated 

 serum medium in slants and the simultaneous inoculation of 

 slants of bile serum medium made according to the original 

 formula of Drigalski and Bierast (1913). In this way 400 com- 

 parative examinations with the bile and the Loeffler's media 

 were made. One hundred and six examinations gave positive 

 findings on both media. Positive results were obtained on 

 Loeffler's medium only, in 8 examinations, and on the bile media 

 alone, in 4 examinations. Growth of the diphtheria bacilli was 

 more luxuriant on the bile medium in 32 of the 106 positive 

 examinations, but in 5 cases growth was more vigorous on the 

 Loeffler medium. 



This work was subsequently repeated, the bile-serum tubes 

 being inoculated first with the swabs, to^ exclude error due to a 

 lessening in the number of diphtheria bacilli carried over in 

 serial inoculations. The results obtained in 78 comparative 

 tests conducted in this manner showed essentially the same 

 findings as in the first experiment. 



Thus the results of our experiment comparing the value of 

 bile-serum and Loeffler serum tubes are in close agreement with 

 those of previous workers who used the plating method. In 

 some instances, in our work, the inhibiting effect of bile upon 

 the common organisms present in the mouth, especially the 

 staphylococcus, was very marked; but in general the modified 

 Loeffler's coagulated serum medium offers no advantage over 

 the plain Loeffler's medium in the isolation and identification of 

 Bacillus diphtheriae. 



REFERENCES 



Busing 1914 Ueber den Zusatz von Rindergalle zum Loffletschen Diphtherie- 

 nahrboden. Deutsche med. Wchnschr. 40, 486-487. 



Drigalski und Bierast 1913 Ein Verfahren zum Nachweis der Diph- 

 theriebazillen und seine praktische Bedeutung. Deutsche med. 

 Wchnschr. 39, 1237-1239. 



