Clostridium difficile and its toxins

Abstract

An investigation of Clostridium difficile has shown : 1. that the organism is resistant to cresols and phenolq and may be grown from material grossly contaminated with other organisms by culture in media containing these substances; strains isolated before this method was evised are also resistant to cresols and phenol; 2. that the organism divides into four daughter cells; 3. that each strain examined has a different strain specific agglutinogen, and that the strains are otherwise antigenically complex; 4. that the sugar reactions are fairly consistent 5. that gelatin is liquefied by all available strains in three weeks; and that apart from this there is no proteolytic activity 6. that the hyaluronidase produced by all strains is antigenically uniform? and so is the lethal toxin; 7. and that the 'haemolysin' is almost certainly complex.