Susumu Horie

A SELECTIVE LIQUID MEDIUM FOR DETECTION OF THE TAKIKAWA'S GROUP OF HALOPHILIC BACTERIA

It was revealed by recent investigations in our country that numerous cases of food poisoning from eating of marine products are presumed to be caused by a certain species of halophilic organisms, so-called Takikawas pathogenic halophilic bacteria. In general the causative organisms can be easily isolated from the stool of patients affected by this disease. Although the bacteria has been suspected to be of marine origin, it is very difficult to isolate them from marine products or sea water which is generally connected with causative foods. In investigating the distribution of the organisms in natural environment, use of an excellent selective medium is considered to be necessary. The authors devised, for the selective cultivation of pathogenic halophilic bacteria, a liquid medium, 5% NaCl mannitol ethyl violet broth. This medium can be prepared as follows: 5g. peptone, 3g. meat extract, 5g. mannitol, 50g. NaCl, 0.03g. bromothymol blue and 0.001g. ethyl violet are dissolved in 1, 000ml. of distilled water and the reaction of mixture is adjusted with an NaOH solution before autoclaving to pH 9.5.