The Bactericidal Power of Sulfanilamide under Anaerobic Conditions.

As a result of the studies of Locke, Main, and Mellon (1938), Fox, German, and Janeway (1939), and others, and the chemical experiments of Shaffer (1939), all of whom have advocated the importance of the presence of oxygen and the formation of hydrogen peroxide as essential to the action of sulfanilamide, interest has developed as to whether sulfanilamide can exert its action on organisms in vitro under biologically anaerobic conditions. Bliss and Long (1939) have reported that they were able to demonstrate bacteriostasis by sulfanilamide under anaerobic conditions, but did observe less effect at low oxygen tension. Broh-Kahn (1939) has likewise studied this question and substantiated the results of Bliss and Long. Using Escherichia coli as the test organism, this worker has elicited the following facts. When the organism is grown in nutrient extract broth it develops much better aerobically than anaerobically, and there is marked bacteriostasis with sulfanilamide under aerobic but not under anaerobic conditions. This was explained by stating that the drug affects (of the two types of nutrition) only the aerobic mechanism of nutrition while the anaerobic mechanism is unaffected. In evidence of this fact the degree of growth aerobically in the presence of the drug was claimed to be the same as anaerobically without the drug. Further evidence for this point of view was adduced by the observation that in the presence of glucose no effect of the drug was noted