A simplified method for the quantitative bacterial culture of urine.

they were washed with wet swabs and suspended in 1 ml. of nutrient broth and inoculated on blood agar media and into mice. All tested slides failed to produce either culture or infection. A similar experiment was performed with the same type of slides from which mercuric chloride was removed. Both the medium and mice failed to show the presence of B. anthracis. Because unstained areas round the bacteria may simply be the space between a lightly stained surrounding medium, which retracted from the cells on drying and bacteria, the best way to demonstrate capsules is actually to stain them by some procedure which differentiates them from the cell itself. A modification of Leifson's method (1930) for staining flagella accomplishes this in the case of B. anthracis.