Studies on the Effect of Synthetic Surface-active Materials on Bacterial Growth. II.

In a previous communication (Katz and Lipsitz, 1935), the effect of a certain synthetic surface-active material on the growth of Mycobacterium smegmatis was discussed; this work has now been extended to include three more compounds, varying in chemical structure. These materials possess substantially the same properties as the alkylated naphthalene sulfonate originally employed, i.e., remarkable capillary-activity plus sufficient chemical stability to retain capillary-active properties in solutions of low pH and in the presence of alkaline earths and heavy metal salts.