SOME CARBOHYDRATE REACTIONS OF THE DYSENTERY 



BACILLUS ' 



By C. S. Butler' 



(From the Laboratory of the United States Naval Hospital, Canacao, P. I.) 



Ever since the carbohydrate reactions were elected to a wider 

 field of usefulness in bacteriology, largely through the work of 

 Theobald Smith, (i) there have been difi'erences of opinion 

 among authors as to their reliability. One need only compare 

 the fermentation tables published by different authors to note 

 differences as regards the same organism. In some cases the 

 same author will give different results for the same bacterium. 

 Thus in the fourth edition (1910) of Pathogenic Bacteria and 

 Protozoa by Park and Williams, on page 257, we find in a chart 

 that Bacillus dysenteric (Shiga) ferments with acid produc- 

 tion the carbohydrates dextrose, maltose, dextrin, and mannite. 

 On page 275 of the same volume, the authors state that the 

 dysentery bacillus produces neither acid nor gas in glucose 

 bouillon, while on page 281 they state that the Shiga type of 

 dysentery bacillus does not ferment mannite, maltose, nor sac- 

 charose. Here are two statements of error to one statement of 

 fact, and while it would not bother one who was actually work- 

 ing with the subject, yet it does not better the general opinion 

 of the carbohydrates as differential agents to find such oppos- 

 ing statements about them. Other instances of this kind 

 could be mentioned, but it is only intended to indicate that at 

 times the carbohydrates may not, from one reason or another, 

 have received a fair appraisement of their real value, and it 

 is the purpose of this paper to try and explain a few of these 

 opposing results. As a purely theoretical proposition, it would 

 seem logical to conclude that, if a pure culture of a given bac- 

 terium is introduced into a medium made always of the same 

 materials and constant in reaction, with a given amount (say, 

 1 per cent) of a chemically pure carbohydrate added, the bac- 



' Read before the Ninth Annual Meeting of the Philippine Islands 

 Medical Association, held in Manila from November 4-7, 1912. 



'Surgeon, United States Navy; and lecturer on the pathogenesis of 

 physical agents in the Tropics, University of the Philippines. 



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