Aug. 19, 1922] SECTION OF MICROBIOLOGY. [M.IrcA?j"JKNAi. 



III.-CONCERNING THE THEORIES OF THE 

 SO-CALLED "BACTERIOPHAGE." 



By J. BoRDET, M.D., 



Director of the Pasteur Institute, Brussels. 



[The following explanatory statement was read by Dr. Gratia for Professor 

 Bordet.] 



Through Dr. Gratia I obtained access to the paper Dr. d'Herelle intends to 

 present on the lytic phenomenon due to the so-called "bacteriophage." I was 

 not a little surprised to find that Dr. d'Herelle in this paper attributes to my 

 co-worker, Dr. Ciuca, and to myself, as regards the intimate nature of this 

 phenomenon, an opinion which is wholly different from what we felt entitled 

 to uphold from the very beginning of our studies on the subject.^ Dr. d'Herelle 

 quotes our names next to Kabeshima's, and enlists us among the authors who 

 assume that the lytic principle is a leucocytic secretion. In fact, this view 

 seems to us altogether untenable, and is almost the reverse of the opinion we 

 have constantly emphasized. 



I think we were first to advocate the view that the lytic principle is pro- 

 duced by the microbe itself which shows the lysis— in other words, that the 

 transmissible lysis is in reality an autolysis betraying a nutritive vitiation 

 primarily started by external influences, an example of which may be the con- 

 tact with a leucocytic exudate. No doubt it would be quite unnecessary to 

 translate literally the many passages of our papers where this assumption is 

 advocated. Some lines, however, may be quoted: 



"External influences such as that of a leucocytic exudate modify the bacterium, 

 inducing the latter to elaborate a lytic substance capable of difl:using itself and bring- 

 ing about the same autolytic phenomenon through successive cultures. When the 

 autolytic process occurs a large number of the microbes present may perish, but some 

 of them, being more resistant, are, during a certain length of time, still capable of 

 reproduction in spite of their producing the active principle, thus imparting to new 

 cultures of the same microbe the same autolytic tendency." 



In another paper we add: 



"According to d'Herelle, the lysis is due to a living being, to a filtering virus. We, 

 on the contrary, believe that the lytic principle originates from the bacteria them- 

 selves, which, when touched by this active substance, are capable of regenerating it, 

 the factor responsil^le for the phenomenon being thus unceasingly reproduced— on 

 the condition, however, that the bacteria be still living and provided with the 

 alimentary substances necessary to their growth." 



I wonder how Dr. d'Herelle could possibly give such an erroneous account 

 of our work as in his paper. The many authors who have written on the 

 subject did not, like Dr. d'Herelle, misinterpret a theory which we have so often 

 and so distinctly outlined and explained. I shall allow myself to quote, for 

 instance, the paper recently published by Dr. Bruynoghe," who writes: 



"According to Bordet and Ciuca, the microbes undergo— throuffh the agency of 

 a leucocytic exudate— a modification by which they are henceforth capable of 

 elaborating an autolytic principle, this property being further transmitted to the 



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