UNIVERSITY 



CHAPTEK I 



INTRODUCTION 



DURING the past ten years or so there is hardly a 

 subject which has received so much attention as the 

 Science of Bacteriology the Study of Microbes. 

 No one need wonder that the scientific world has 

 been so busy in such a fruitful field of research, 

 for it has not only been demonstrated that microbes 

 play important parts in the processes of fermenta- 

 tion, putrefaction, nitrification, etc., but that many 

 of these lowly beings are intimately connected with 

 infectious diseases. 



Phthisis, diphtheria, cholera, malaria, glanders, 

 scarlatina, etc., have been proved to be the result? 

 of the action of certain microbes on the blood an* 

 tissues. 



Infectious diseases being due to the action of cer- 

 tain microbes, it is necessary to isolate the microbes 

 and to study them apart from the body. Hence 

 the necessity of obtaining a pure culture of any 

 particular microbe (i.e. its freedom from other 

 microbes, etc.) before we can accurately study its 



