Abstract
Summary
The results show that alternating current had little or no effect upon the growth rate of microorganisms in the current and frequency ranges investigated. The general effect of direct current upon generation time was to increase it. When filters were removed, the effect was greater than with filters. This would seem to indicate that the agents causing the decrease in growth rate are a by-product of the electrochemical reaction as they would be more concentrated near the electrodes and without filters the microorganisms would be more exposed.
It appears that this phenomenon of decreased growth rate is not due to a pH change. In all cases, the immediate area in which the cells were grown maintained a buffered condition. This held for both the filtered and nonfiltered runs.
These results agree with the in vivo results found in wound healing, that is, the application of electrical current proved deleterious to bacterial growth. This corollary is drawn from a short application time study. There is the possibility that the trend could reverse itself with time and then corollate with Stone's results. However, there is no indication from this study that this would happen. The experimental conditions here were different from Stone's and limited in number of variables.
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