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An alkaline medium favours bacterial growth; and moisture is a necessary condition; spores, however, can survive the want of water for much longer periods than fully developed bacteria. The necessity for oxygen varies in different species. Those that require oxygen are known as aërobic bacilli or aërobes; those that cannot live in the presence of oxygen are spoken of as anaërobes.
A suppressed cry from Rae Melzer caused me to recollect the file and brush she had missed. "Just a second," raced on Kennedy. "On this file and brush I found spores of those deadly anaerobes dead, killed by heat and an antiseptic, perhaps a one-per-cent. solution of carbolic acid at blood heat, ninety-eight degrees dead, but nevertheless there.
If the microbe be associated with the latter in sufficient amount it may crowd it out completely prevent it from growing in the body at all. Anthrax does not appear, and the infection, entirely local, becomes merely an abscess whose cure is easy. Pasteur could not have meant to say that both bacteria are anaerobes. The word "not" is introduced to correct the error.
The anaërobe most constantly present is the bacillus ærogenes capsulatus, usually in association with other anaërobes, and sometimes with pyogenic diplo- and streptococci. According to the mode of action of the associated organisms and the combined effects of their toxins on the tissues, the gangrenous process presents different pathological and clinical features.
In my horror at the discovery, I had forgotten the broken package that had come to the hotel desk while we stood there. "Then it was Gavira who was receiving spores and cultures of the anaerobes!" I exclaimed, excitedly. "But that doesn't prove that it was he who used them," cautioned Craig, adding, "not yet, at least."
I realized fully the difficulty of trying to trace them. Any one could purchase germs, I knew. There was no law governing the sale. Craig was at work again over his microscope. Again he looked up at me. "Here on this other film I find the same sort of wisp-like anaerobes," he announced. "There was the same thing on those pieces of glass that I got."
It follows infection of lacerated wounds with the bacillus ærogenes capsulatus, usually in combination with other anaërobes, and its main incidence is on the muscles, which rapidly become infiltrated with gas that spreads throughout the whole extent of the muscle, disintegrating its fibres and leading to necrosis.
The great majority of bacteria, however, while they prefer to have oxygen, are able to live without it, and are called facultative anaërobes.
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