The Influence of Carbohydrates

While a newly isolated bacterium would usually, as a mat ter of bionomic routine, be tested soon for its power of fermentation of various carbohydrates, nothing systematic has been done in this direction with the group of organisms dassed as spirochetes. The lack of investigation along this line may be partly due to the technical difficulties which still surround the cultivation of these organisms, and probably also to the limited number of workers in the field. The present paper is a report of experiments which deal with the influence of starch and sugars upon pure cultures of various spirochetes. Attention has been directed to the fermentation phenomena as well as to the effect upon the growth and morphology of the organisms, since we are mindful of the fact that the addition of certain of these substances to some bacterial cultures may bring about almost incredible involution of forms t or sometimes induce spore formation in a bacterium which is otherwise not sporiferous.t.~, 3