426 
THOMPSON YATES LABORATORIES REPORT 
Distribution 
The faculty of producing sulphide in a greater or less degree appears to be very 
general among bacteria. One must be guarded in stating that any individual form 
does not produce sulphide, for it has been observed that this property may vary 
somewhat in any organism, even a very strong sulphide builder, from time to time 
in the same medium. And, as already mentioned, an organism which cannot form 
sulphide from one substance may be capable of doing so from another. 
Petri and Maassen examined thirty-seven pathogenic bacteria, all of which 
proved capable of forming sulphide in a greater or less degree. 
They ascertained that animals inoculated with Rotblauf bacillus acquired 
symptoms of hydrogen sulphide poisoning. Sulphide of hydrogen was demonstrated 
in the fresh blood and organs of such animals. Similarly it was detected in the 
subcutaneous tissue of an animal inoculated with bacillus of malignant oedema. The 
anaerobic pathogenic bacteria were found by them to be the most active in the formation 
of this gas. 
In nature Beijerinck. regards the anaerobic reducer of sulphates as producing 
more hydrogen sulphide than any other form. He places also bacillus coli in the 
front rank of hydrogen sulphide builders, partly because of its individual power and 
partly because of its wide distribution. Stagnitta-Balistreri and Rubner found 
bacillus coli to produce less than the typhoid bacillus. The appended table, in which 
the organisms are arranged approximately in order of sulphide producing activity, 
indicates that seven of them produce more sulphide than the forms of coli included. 
The activity of these coli forms differs among themselves. No. 8 is decidedly a 
stronger producer than No. 1 1 . Both of them are stronger than the typhoid strains 
examined. The laboratory culture of the Escherich form, on the other hand, 
proved weaker in production than the typhoid forms. The question of the distribu- 
tion of coli is yet a debated one. 
It will be observed that the majority of the active sulphide builders have been 
obtained from sewage and faeces. Several, however, have been derived from black 
mud or water. These several sources presented a common feature, viz., an exceed- 
ingly black appearance with sometimes an emission of unpleasant odours. The 
black formation apparently is an incident in the putrefactive process. 
In all places it is not improbable that the black putrefactive processes result from 
taecal contamination. This suggestion is rendered more probable by the fact that all 
the active sulphide builders isolated yield acid and gas or acid in MacConk ev's 
taurocholate glucose broth' 5 at 42° C, which he considers as strongly indicative of 
intestinal origin. It will be observed in the table that those organisms obtained from 
areas of decaying vegetation are, with one or two exceptions, weak sulphide pro- 
ducers. This is what one might expect from the character of the food supplied 
them, and from the appearance of the disorganizing matter. 
