Abstract
THE subject of disinfectants has lately attracted considerable attention, and Mr. Partridge's little book forms a very useful summary of the methods employed for testing bacteriologically the germicidal value of disinfectants. The Rideal-Walker or “drop” method is rightly that most favoured, and the major part of the book is devoted to it. We doubt if the explanation given on p. 17, that a forty-eight hours' culture of B. typhosus is less readily killed by a disinfectant than a twenty-four hours' one, because it is more vigorous, is correct; we should ascribe the fact rather to the greater number of bacilli and to clumping in the older culture. On p. 18 it is said that while a broth having a reaction of +1.5 is suitable for the culture of the typhoid bacillus, for the diphtheria and cholera organisms a “neutral or alkaline broth must be substituted.” The broth named is quite suitable for these organisms, for it is alkaline in the ordinary acceptation of the term; though acid to phenolph-thalein, it is still alkaline to litmus. On p. 34 an experiment is quoted to show that an organism from different sources may have a different resisting power from a disinfectant. Doubtless this is so, but the experiment does not prove it. The experiment shows that two strains of the typhoid bacillus, with strengths of carbolic of 1 in 70 and 1 in 100 respectively, are killed in between 5 and 71/4 minutes; obviously the one might have been killed in 51/4 minutes, the other in 71/4 minutes, and actually there might have been little difference between them. Everyone has his own method of manipulating tubes for inoculation, but we do not like either method depicted in Figs. 3 and 4. Major Fowler, R.A.M.C., contributes a useful introduction.
The Bacteriological Examination of Disinfectants.
By William Partridge. With a preface by Major C. E. P. Fowler. Pp. 66. (London: The Sanitary Publishing Co., Ltd., 1907.) Price 2s. 6d. net.
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HEWLETT, R. The Bacteriological Examination of Disinfectants . Nature 77, 246 (1908). https://doi.org/10.1038/077246a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/077246a0