The Identity of C. Oedematoides and B. Sordellii.

Abstract

In 1927, we, with Karp, 1 reported the isolation from a fatal human case of “gas gangrene” of a pathogenic anaerobic organism which did not correspond either culturally or immunologically to any of the hitherto well recognized clostridia; and, shortly after, we were able to isolate the same organism from specimens of imperfectly sterilized cat-gut. 2 This organism somewhat resembled Weinberg's B. oedematiens culturally. When injected into mice subcutaneously it produced much the same type of lesion, i. e., the white gelatinous oedema so characteristic of the latter organism.

It differed from B. oedematiens, however, in failing to ferment glycerol; it was more actively proteolytic; and, more especially, the toxin readily obtained by filtering cultures, was in no way neutralized by high-titre anti-oedematiens serum. On the other hand, anti-serum prepared by the immunization of a rabbit with this sterile filtrate afforded full protection against the homologous toxin, but not at all against the toxins of B. welchii, of vibrion septique or of B. oedematiens.

For these reasons we concluded that the organism should be recognized as a distinct species and suggested the name Clostridium oedematoides.

A short time later, Hall and Scott 3 published a restudy of 2 strains of organisms sent to them from South America by Sordellii, which the latter had described first in 1922 4 and had named B. oedematis sporogenes. Although Hall and Scott found one of these strains to be entirely non-pathogenic for laboratory animals, they found that the other was fully virulent and that it produced a potent exo-toxin which could be separated from cultures by filtration. Hall and Scott suggested that the original name, B. oedematis sporogenes should be replaced by the binomial B. sordellii. They also suggested that the cultural characteristics of Sordellii's organism were so similar to those of C. oedematoides as described by us, as to render it probable that the 2 species were identical.