The types of tetanus bacilli isolated from stools in Peking.

Abstract

We had not seen any confirmation of Tulloch's seriological classification of tetanus bacilli and as we had a number of strains of this organism, isolated from the stools of man, we thought it worth while to see if they could be differentiated into groups by the agglutination reaction. Tulloch not only sent us transplants of his four type cultures but has been most kind in answering our questions and has sent us an impure culture of a strain of tetanus bacilli that did not agglutinate with his type sera. This culture he received from France in 1918 but since no data accompanied it and since it was the only culture that did not agglutinate with his type sera he did not mention it in his work. This culture, which we have called Type V, has interested us very much for, as will be seen in the table, it is a type that we have found most frequently in Peking.

Agglutinating sera were easily prepared by the injection into rabbits of washed bacilli from actively growing 24 hour bouillon cultures. The first injection was subcutaneous and was followed at intervals of a week hy three intravenous inoculations. The animals withstood the treatment well and ten days after the last injection their sera agglutinated the type bacillus used in a dilution of 1/6000 or higher. The differentiation of the types is quite striking as the other organisms were not, as a rule, clumped in dilution as low as 1/100.

The results of our tests are given in the table where we have included the findings of Tulloch for comparison.

It will be noted that we have confirmed the seriological grouping of tetanus bacilli though we have not, in the small numbers of cultures studied, found Types I1 or IV.