In his experiments Fullerton used tobacco 
juice obtained from the human mouth by chew- 
ing plug tobacco. He also used a solution of 
smoke obtained from a well seasoned pipe. 
These were first thoroughly sterilized in order 
to obtain a pure natural mixture of tobacco 
and saliva. Cultures of well-known species of 
bacteria were made using every laboratory pre- 
caution so as to obtain accurate results. 
Specimens of these bacterial cultures were then 
submitted to the action of the tobacco juice. 
It was found that exposure for one hour killed 
or rendered innocuous 15 to 98 per cent of the 
bacteria; exposure for 24 hours acted similarly 
on from 84 to 100%. Dr. Fullerton gives his 
opinion, from his results, that it seems that a 
pipeful of tobacco was more toxic to bacteria 
than one chew; but chewing tends to loosen 
retained food particles, foci of bacteria, etc., 
and much of this is ejected from the mouth. 
Fullerton’s work agreed very well with the re- 
sults obtained by other workers in the same line 
of investigation. In Miller’s Micro-organisms 
of the Human Mouth, p. 246, it is stated that 
the organisms of the mouth lead only a miser- 
able existence in a mixture of an infusion of 
tobacco, sugar and saliva; and that the smoke 
of the last one-third or the first one-fourth of a 
Colorado Claro cigar sterilized ten cubic centi- 
198 
