Bacillus Sordellii, A Cause of Malignant Edema in Man

Abstract

This paper confirms Sordelli''s discovery of a putrefactive, pathogenic anaerobe in human gangrenous infections, which combines the virulent properties of B. novyi with the principal morphologic and cultural properties of B. sporogenes. It is here named Bacillus sordellii (Bacillus oedematis sporogenes Sordelli). It resembles the new anaerobe recently described by Meleney, Humphreys and Carp and may prove to be identical. Efforts to show that Sordelli''s culture consisted of a mixture of different species were unsuccessful. It was possible, however, to isolate from one of his strains 2 substrains differing in form of deep agar colonies; these differences, though at first apparently constant, were later shown to be temporary.