Serological Types of Clostridium perfringens.

In the flood of papers on the pathogenic anaerobes which appeared about 1920 several workers, particularly Zeissler (1919), Heller (1920), Hall (1922), came to the conclusion that agglutination reactions were of no value in the classification of the group. The apparent heterogenicity of strains of Clostridium perfringens has probably caused the greatest difficulty. Weinberg and Barotte (1928), Howard (1928), Wilsdon (1931), Ris (1936) and others have produced agglutinating sera for this species in relatively high titre notwithstanding Robertson's (1928) apparent failure; yet in their review of the serological relationship of anaerobes McCoy and McClung (1938) remark: there is "nothing but confusion" concerning the agglutination reactions of C. perfringens. The extremes of opinion concerning the antigenic relationship among members of this species may be represented by the work of Wilsdon (1931) and Meisel (1938). Wilsdon found that his strains were agglutinated only by homologous sera. However, he included both C. perfringens of human origin and also those of the rather confusing group isolated from disease of herbivorous animals, particularly sheep, referred to as Bacillus agni, Bacillus plaudis, Bacillus ovitoxicus. It will be remembered that these organisms are distinguished from each other and from the classical C. perfringens largely on the specificity of the toxins they produce. Whether these organisms should be included in the C. perfringens species remains to be determined. On the other hand Meisel found that six of ten cultures of Type A C. perfringens examined belong to one serological group and that four are serologically heterogeneous.