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Microbiology. — “An experiment with Sarcina ventriculi”. By 
Professor Dr. M. W. Brtrrinck. 
Some years ago I presented a paper concerning a method to 
obtain and cultivate an anaërobie fermentation Sarcina from garden 
soil.') As the microscopic image and the dimensions of the thus 
obtained organism corresponded in all respects with the Sarcina of 
the stomach,*) of which SURINGAR *) has given so exact a description, 
I already then tried to prove their identity by experiments, similar 
to those with garden soil, with material containing stomach sarcina, 
which I owed to Professor van LEERSUM at Leiden. These experi- 
ments, however, failed. A later one, made at Leiden after my 
indications, proved likewise unsuccessful. 
My supposition that the cause of the failure might have been a 
too strong aération of the infection material by which the anaërobic 
stomach sarcina had lost all its vegetative power, induced me to 
pay special attention to this point at a renewed experiment for which 
Professor VAN LeErRsuM again afforded me an opportunity in the 
Academic Hospital at Leiden. 
It was proved that my supposition had been right: when trans- 
ferring the contents of the stomach with the sarcina to a fit culture 
liquid, so quickly that contact with the air might be considered as 
excluded, it was possible to make the growth and fermentation 
proceed vigorously. ; 
The experiment was managed as follows. 
Some bottles of about 130¢.m.* were filled with boiling malt 
extract quite freed from air by previous boiling. The malt extract 
was prepared by soaking about 20 g. of grist of kiln-dried malt in 
80 g. of water, saccharifying one hour at 638° C., boiling and 
filtering. Some bottles were acidified with phosphoric acid to 5 em? 
N per 100 cm’, some others to 10cm’ N, and others were not acidi- 
fied at all. The acidification was applied as the experience with the 
sarcina of the soil had taught that this organism endures a high 
1) Proceedings of the Meeting of 25 February 1905 p. 580. Archives Neér- 
landaises Sér. 2, T. 9. page 199, 1905. 
?) Discovered by Goonsir, History of a case in which a fluid, periodically ejected 
from the stomach, contained vegetable organisms of an undescribed form. With 
a chemical analysis of the fluid by Wirson. Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, 
T, 57, p. 430, 1842. Witson asserts he has found acetic acid in the gastric 
juice, but does not speak of lactid acid, which is in fact produced by Sarcina 
ventriculi, 
35) De Sarcine (Sarcina ventriculi Goopsir), Leeuwarden 1865. 
