Hydration Effects of Amixo-compounds. 



33 



organisms. In a bacteriological analysis of 308 cases of gaseous 

 gangrene, of which 91 were derived from Weinberg's series and 

 217 from wounded American soldiers, the percentage of incidence 

 of the various pathogenic anaerobes is as follows : 



Per Cent. 



B. welchii 85 



B. sporogenes 35.4 



B. cedematiens 12.6 



Vibrion septique 17.2 



B.fallax 6.4 



This is not the true incidence of the B. cedematiens, fallax, histoly- 

 ticus or aerofcetidus as the difficulties in the isolation of these 

 organisms in pure culture is great, but it does serve to emphasize 

 the fact that infectious gaseous gangrene is usually a mixed 

 infection. 



In this group of 308 cases of infectious gaseous gangrene only 

 79 were infected with a single pathogenic anaerobe, the remaining 

 229 having from two to six anaerobes in the local lesion, and nearly 

 always at least two pathogenic anaerobes. 



19 (1479) 



Hydration effects of amino-compounds. 

 By D. T. MacDougal and H. A. Spoehr. 



[From Desert Laboratory, Tucson, Arizona.] 



The chief interest in the results presented in this brief paper 

 depends upon the following facts and conditions: 



A. The amino-compounds furnish the only known solutions 

 in which agar and other pentosans or mucilages undergo a greater 

 hydration than in distilled water. Tentative conclusions to this 

 effect have been confirmed by all of the results obtained during 

 the past year. 1 



B. The pentosans, or anhydrides of the 5-carbon sugars are 

 universally and abundantly present in plant cells, originating 

 by transformations of wall-material, starch, etc., in any part of 



1 MacDougal, D. T. and H. A. Spoehr, "The effect of organic acids and their 

 amino-compounds on the hydration of agar and on a biocolloid," Proc. Soc. for 

 Exper. Biol, and Med., 1918, xvi: 33-35. 



