| Abstract |
It is a well-known fact that an isolation of non-sporeforming anaerobes, considered normal flora in man ordinarily but causes serious infections sometimes, is a difficult procedure because of their great oxygen sensitivity. Among the many techniques employed in clinical laboratories, despite of its high expenses, the GasPak method has been most widely used because of its relative simplicity. On the other hand, the steel wool method has gained a good reputation recently. This technique makes it possible to treat individual plate so that any single specimen can be promptly cultured anaerobically. The procedure is quite simple and the expenses are negligible. In the present study it is to compare these two methods as to their efficiency of anaerobic cultivation using 13 VPI strains of non-sporeforming amaerobic bacteria. Among the 13 species the following 11, Bacteroides fragilis ss. fragilis, B. fragilis ss. thetaiotaomicron, propionibacterium acnes, Eubacterium limosum, E. lentum, peptococcus asaccharolyticus, Pc. prevotii, Pc. magnus, peptostreptococcus anaerobius, Ps. intermedius nad Veillonella parvula, grew well with the steel wool method whose colony numbers reaching 57 to 119% of those with GasPak method. The remaining two species, Fusobacterium nucleatum and F.necrophorum, did not grow well with the steel wool method showing the colony numbers were only 0.4% of those with GasPak method in the case of Fusobacterium nucleatum. In the case of Fusobacterium necrophorum, very few colonies developed even with a heavy inoculation. As to the size of colonies, there were no significant difference between these two methods. |
