237 
THE NATIONAL COLLECTION 
OF TYPE CULTURES. 
By R. St John Brooks, M.D., D.P.H., M.A. 
The inception of the National Collection of Type Cultures was 
due to the initiative of the Medical Research Committee (now 
the Medical Research Council), who had long had in view the 
formation of a collection where biologists in general and bac- 
teriologists in particular might obtain authentic strains of 
bacteria, protozoa, etc., for use in scientific work. The need of 
an available supply of this kind had long been felt in many 
directions and particularly in medical research work, for the 
study of principles and methods in bacteriological technique 
and for the systematic classification of bacteria, protozoa, etc., 
in their various species and strains. 
In the past the needs of workers in this respect had never 
been fully met. In this country the Lister Institute of Preventive 
Medicine had for many years assisted bacteriologists both at 
home and abroad, so far as the resources of its own private 
collection permitted, but British workers had been dependent 
in great part upon the courtesy of scientific colleagues or upon 
the collections of Institutes in other countries. Before the war 
the collection of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, maintained by 
M. Binot, was very helpful to workers here. A collection of 
type cultures was formerly maintained on a commerical basis 
by Kral at Prague and this was subsequently transferred to the 
Sero-physiological Institute of Vienna. In America, the Museum 
of Natural History in New York has maintained a Culture 
Bureau during the last nine years and it is believed that the 
activities of the Bureau have been of the greatest benefit to 
workers there. 
Early last year the Medical Research Council were able, by 
the courtesy of the Governing Body of the Lister Institute, to 
make arrangements to maintain a National Collection of Type 
Cultures at the Institute, where all the necessary facilities had 
been provided. The scheme is under the general direction, on 
behalf of the Council, of Prof. J. C. G. Ledingham, a member 
of the Staff of the Lister Institute, the writer being appointed 
by the Council to be Curator of the Collection with Miss M. 
Rhodes as Assistant Curator. 
Since the formation of the Collection in January I92I some 
twelve hundred strains of micro-organisms of medical, veterinary 
and economic importance have been incorporated in the collec- 
tion and cultures have been distributed to workers at home and 
M.S. 16 
