The Effect of Environmental Changes on the Growth, Morphology, Physiology and Immunological Characteristics of Bacterium Typhosum

Abstract

The question of just how far environmental changes will affect the cultural characters of a species or a single strain of a species is one that needs more study. A review of the literature shows considerable contradictory evidence resulting from the experiments of different investigators. In an attempt to work out the relation existing between the growth and fermentative powers of bacteria, Herter (1909) and Jacoby (1917) came to opposite conclusions. The former concludes from his work that the fermentative power of species may be greatly impaired or entirely lost without any appreciable effect upon their growth; whereas Jacoby contends that growth and fermentative ability run a fairly parallel course. Pacini (1918), working on the vitamine content of bacteria obtained an excellent growth on Uschinsky's medium with the Anderson strain of Bact. typhosum, while Damon (1921), working on the same problem and using the same medium, was unable to obtain any growth with the typhoid strain which he used. Kirstein (1904) found that, when cultivated on synthetic medium, the typhoid bacillus became spontaneously agglutinable, while Frankel and Barker (1919) reported no change in the agglutinability of the typhoid bacterium cultivated on various synthetic media. Joos (1902), Joachin (1904), and Scheller (1905), (1906) have come to the conclusion that heating the typhoid bacillus alters its antigenic and 1 Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Brown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Eijkman Relationships of the Coliform and Related Bacteria

“…Such cultures grew with mucoid consistency and in some cases marked encapsulation resulted. A similar mucoid condition for Eberthella typhosa grown at high temperatures has been reported (Stuart 1924).…”

Some Quantitative Relationships in Bacterial Population Cycles

“…The observation brings up the question, however, as to how an optimum temperature should be determined-whether the growth-rate temperature-curves should be made from cultures carried at "room temperature" or from organisms first acclimatized to the various temperatures. As Stuart (1925) has shown, from a previously favorable environment (in our case, 220) an organism may gain momentum which permits it to flourish for a time in unfavorable conditions (370); several transplants in the new environment are necessary before the effect of growth momentum can be ruled out. In most of the experiments here, ffl8 on October 9, 2020 by guest http://jb.asm.org/ Downloaded from acclimatization had no appreciable effect.…”

Further Studies on the Morphology ofEscherichia coliExposed to Penicillin

“…Wahlin and Almaden (1939) presented a list of those authors who, they considered, had been dealing with true "megalomorphs" or fusiform cells. To this list should be added the following: Ohlmacher (1902), Peju andRajat (1906), Wilson (1906), Scales (1921), Reed and Orr (1923), Stuart (1924), Tetrault (1930, Cunningham (1931), Kritschewski andPonomarewa (1934), andPrice et al (1947). Fusiform structures in cultures exposed to penicillin were reviewed by us earlier (1947).…”