i07 
EXPERIMENTS ON THE DETECTION OF 
B. TYPHOSUS IN INFECTED MATERIAL 
By EDWARD H. HUME, B.A., M.D. 
LATE J. W. GARRETT FELLOW, LIVERPOOL 
ALTHOUGH much has been done towards the detection of B. typhosus in 
contaminated material, by methods which utilize the differences in its 
chemical activity and in the morphology of its colonies from that of other 
organisms, very few investigators have laid much stress on its greater motility as 
compared with that of B. coli, etc., as a characteristic by which it might be recognized 
and isolated. 
Stoddart's 10 method is based on this characteristic, while that of Hiss'' 
utilizes all three features, its chemical activity, its morphology, and its motility. 
Gabritschewsky 5 , however, was the first to devise a method based solely on 
the motility of B. typhosus, and so far as the writer can determine, no other worker 
has suggested further adaptations of this principle.* 
In connexion with other experiments on typhoid infection, repeated efforts 
were made by the writer to devise a simple form of Gabritschewsky's tube', such 
as could be used in the routine examination of faeces or even of water. Although it 
was proved possible, using a tube of this sort, to isolate B. typhosus in pure culture 
from artificial mixtures, and in one special instance, to isolate a motile bacillus from 
the stools and urine of a patient suffering from what is now called 4 Para-typhoid ' 
infection, yet the results were inconstant. Too much depended on the tightness with 
which the cotton-wool plug was inserted into the proximal end, and on the facility 
with which one could fill the tubes with the nutrient medium. Further study along 
this line was therefore discontinued for a time, only to be renewed after the publication 
of von Drigalsjci's and Conradi's 1 results in the February of the present year (1902). 
It was suggested by these writers that emulsions of faeces from suspected 
cases of typhoid fever, or other fluids suspected of containing B. typhosus, should be 
centrifugalized, and cultures made from the surface of the centrifugalized fluid at 
intervals of fifteen minutes for some hours. They report having been successful in 
thus isolating B. typhosus in many instances. 
It seemed desirable to determine whether such centrifugalization really lessened 
the number of bacilli at the surface in any marked degree, thus bringing the greater 
motility of B. typhosus into play. Artificial mixtures of B. typhosus and B. coli were 
* Hill" reports a series of experiments to determine the relation between the motility of bacteria and their ability to 
penetrate wet cotton, and concludes that their rate of passage varies with the relative activity of their motility. He does not, 
however, seem to have applied the principle in the isolation of pathogenic bacteria from infected material. 
