Word: coli
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Bacteria act that way only in rare genetic emergencies. Dr. Tatum selected two groups of Escherichia coli (bacteria which Jive in the intestines) and watched them. They multiplied normally by splitting in two, a solitary process. Then Dr. Tatum bombarded some of them with X rays and ultraviolet light. This damaged their insides. The metabolic cripples could still multiply by division (when coddled), but Dr. Tatum hoped that offended nature would somehow force them to repair their deficiencies...
...mixed two strains: one which could not produce vitamins, and another which could not produce certain amino acids. Because of experimental difficulties, Dr. Tatum did not see what happened next; but presently he had a crop of normal Escherichia coli. Their genetic completeness could come only from a combination of both strains. He concluded that the contrasting strains had mated and fused, the good qualities of each repairing the deficiencies of the other...
...Streptothricin protects mice against 10,000 times the ordinary lethal dose of Salmonella schottmülleri (paratyphoid fever organism), Escherichia coli (colon bacillus) and Bacterium shigae (cause of Shiga dysentery). The drug's usefulness against typhoid bacteria has not yet been tested in mice, but it is effective against test-tube typhoid...
...kill the spirochete. Sulfa drugs are not effective against syphilis. But penicillin will not entirely supplant sulfa drugs. The sulfa drugs are still necessary for: 1) intestinal infections (penicillin is destroyed in the digestive tract); 2) bacillus coll infections of the urinary tract (penicillin does not attack b. coli); 3) as prophylactics in epidemics of certain diseases like meningitis, pneumonia, gonorrhea (penicillin is excreted too fast to be used for this purpose...
Biologist Ely nurtured a colony of mixed (Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus) bacteria on sodium phosphate whose phosphorus was radioactive. Next he injected them into the tail veins of rats. Few hours later he analyzed the rats' organs for radioactivity, found it greatest in the liver and the lungs, weakest in the brain. Concluded Ely: "The brain, apparently, has an effective means of preventing bacteria from entering it in large numbers." Further significant conclusions will probably appear as work progresses with this new technique...