502 A MANUAL OF BACTERIOLOGY 



inspissated serum, Dorset's egg medium, and meat broth are 

 valuable for the cultivation of pathogenic anaerobes. Meat broth 

 is prepared as follows : 



Eight ounces of bullock's heart are minced and then pounded 

 in a mortar ; add eight ounces of hot tap-water, bring slowly to 

 the boil and boil for one hour to cook the meat. Add normal 

 sodium hydrate solution sufficient to render alkaline to litmus, 

 fill into tubes without filtration and autoclave to sterilise. The 

 tubes should be boiled in a water-bath for half an hour immediately 

 before use, and after cooling and inoculation, the cultures may be 

 grown anaerobically by one of the methods already given. An 

 alternative is to cover the meat broth with a layer of sterile liquid 

 paraffin, added after autoclaving. 



LITERATURE ON THE ANAEROBES OF WOUNDS. Medical 

 Research Committee, Special Eep. Series, No. 12, 1917 (Mclntosh), 

 ' ; Classification and Study of Anaerobic Bacteria of War Wounds "; 

 ibid., No. 39, 1919 (Rep. of Committee on Anaerobic Bacteria and 

 Infections) ; Weinberg and Seguin, La Gangrene Gazeuse (Masson 

 & Cie., 1918) ; Muriel Robertson, Journ. Pathol. and Bacteriol., 

 vol. xx, 1916, p. 327 ; K. Taylor, ibid., p. 384 ; Wolf and Wolf and 

 Harris, Journ. Pathol. and Bacteriol., vol. xxi, et seq. ; Henry, ibid., 

 vol. xxi, p. 344. 



Tetanus 



It had long been noticed that wounds soiled with earth were 

 specially prone to be complicated by tetanus, and Sternberg in 

 1880, and Nicolaier in 1884, produced tetanus in rabbits by intro- 

 ducing a little garden earth beneath the skin. The latter observer 

 found at the seat of inoculation and in his impure cultures for he 

 was unable to obtain pure ones a distinctive bacillus, and he was 

 able with these cultures, and with the pus from the seat of inocu- 

 lation, to induce tetanus in other animals. Carle and Rattone 

 subsequently showed that the bacillus of Nicolaier was present in 

 the tissues of, and discharge from, the wound, in cases of trau- 

 matic tetanus in man, and that inoculation with the pus from 

 such a wound produced tetanus in the lower animals observa- 

 tions which were confirmed by Rosenbach in 1885. The bacillus 

 was isolated in pure culture by Kitasato in 1889 by taking the 

 impure cultures obtained from the wound in a case of traumatic 

 tetanus, heating to 80 C., and plating the heated cultures, the 

 plates being incubated anaerobically in hydrogen. 



