Filter-Passing Anaerobic Bacteria of the Upper Respiratory Tract in Health and During Acute Respiratory Disease

Abstract

The observations here reported form part of a study of the nasopharyngeal flora of persons in isolated communities during health and when they were suffering with colds. The results of studies of aerobic flora have been published (Burky and Smillie (1929); Milam and Smillie (1931)). Field studies have been made in southern Alabama, in Labrador, and in St. John, one of the Virgin Islands in the West Indies. In the course of this field work cultures were made of the filter-passing anaerobic organisms of the nasopharynx of normal persons and of those with colds. This report is a summary of the results of this work. Olitsky and Gates (1920) first isolated a minute micro6rganism from the nasopharyngeal washings of early uncomplicated cases of influenza. This organism, which they named B. pneumosintes, is a cocco-bacillus, non-motile, Gram-negative, very small, and entirely anaerobic. It was first recovered in Smith-Noguchi medium; later, it was grown on blood-agar plates. Other workers subsequently reported the isolation of B. pneumosintes; Loewe and Zeman (1921) obtained strains from 3 cases of influenza; Gordon (1922) reported its presence in fourteen of 20 cases of influenza; Detwiler and Hodge (1924) in three of 6 cases, and Lister (1922) in five out of 15 cases of the same disease. Bran