THE ANAEROBIC BACILLI 743 



sodium chloride, 1 per cent pepton and 2 per cent glucose. Leuchs 46 

 used a pork infusion with 0.5 per cent sodium chlorid, 1 per cent 

 glucose and 1 per cent pepton. Landmann 47 claimed that animal 

 protein was necessary for good toxin production. According to 

 Dickson this is not essential. He has produced toxin in media 

 made from string beans and from peas, and found that, although 

 an alkalin reaction is favorable, an acid reaction does not prevent 

 toxin formation. According to Burke 48 toxin is produced as readily 

 at 37.5 as it is at 28 C. The toxin is destroyed at temperatures 

 of about 80. Thorn, Edmonson and Giltner 49 claim that their 

 toxin was destroyed by ten minutes' heating at 75 C. Von Ermen- 

 gem's original report was that heating at 56 for three hours killed 

 it, as does heating at 80 for one-half hour. According to Dickson, 

 it is rapidly destroyed by exposure to sunlight and to air, but will 

 maintain its virulence for six months if kept in the dark as it would 

 be in preserved foods. It is not affected by drying and is insoluble 

 in alcohol, ether and chloroform. Normal soda, 20 per cent by 

 volume, is stated by Dickson to destroy it, though similar amounts 

 of acid do not reduce its virulence in twenty-four hours. 



Its potency is considerable. Dickson produced his strongest 

 toxin in pork and beef infusions, but also obtained potent prepara- 

 tions in media of string beans, peas, green corn, and less virulent 

 toxin in media prepared from asparagus, artichokes, peaches, and 

 apricots. Brieger and Kempner 50 obtained a toxin of which 0.000,001 

 of a c.c. would kill a 250-gram guinea-pig in four days, and (we 

 quote from Dickson), Von Ermeiigem found in one of his outbreaks 

 that 200 grams of the poisonous ham caused the death of one patient. 

 He quotes another case in which a piece of preserved duck the size 

 of a walnut was sufficient to cause a disease lasting six weeks, and 

 in his own series, a patient died after tasting a small spoonful of 

 spoiled corn, another died after " nibbling a portion of a pod 

 of the spoiled string beans." A third was quite ill after tasting, 

 but not swallowing a pod of beans. An important point is the claim 

 that has been made by Von Ermengem and others that the organism 

 will not produce toxin in the tissues. Injection of the bacilli alone 



46 Leuchs, Zeit. f. Hyg., 1910, 65, 55. 



47 Landmann, cited from Dickson, loc. cit. 



48 Burke, Jour. Bacter., 4, 1919, 555. 



49 Thorn, Edmonson and Giltner, Jour. A. M. A.. Vol. 73, 1919, page 901. 



50 Brieger and Kempner, Deut. med. Woch., 23, 1897, 521. 



