The isolation of bacillus histolyticus from soil in California

Abstract

During a survey of California soils for anaerobic bacteria, we encountered a strain of B. histolyticus which is of interest as the first recovery of this species in America and one of the few records of its occurrence in soil. All of the other cultures so far described came from war wounds in France and the only recorded proof of this organism as an inhabitant of soil, aside from the fact that most war wounds are contaminated by dirt, is a statement by the Medical Research Committee 1 that, “it … has been obtained from earth.”

The soil specimen was a clay adobe from near Walnut Creek, California, which lies in a rich agricultural valley of the coast range about 12 miles from Berkeley.

The filtrate of an initial culture of this soil in a meat mash medium in the constricted tube 1 contained also the toxin of B. botulinus Type A, and it was during our effort to recover this organism that the Bacillus histolyticus was isolated.

The primary culture contained numerous obligately aerobic hay bacilli and it is interesting to note that while our usual use 2 of gentian violet easily eliminated these by selective bacteriostasis, it was impossible in six trials to eliminate a certain facultative aercbe-anaerobe which we now consider to have been none other than the B. histolyticus since that was the only organism that could be isolated from the subsequent deep agar colonies.

The isolated culture corresponds in all of its morphologic cultural, and pathogenic properties to the war mound strains received from Dr. Weinberg of the Pasteur Institute of Paris or indirectly from Dr. Kahn of Cornell University Medical School.