The Isolation of Strict Anaerobes: the Use of an Anaerobic Cabinet Compared with a Conventional Procedure

An account is given of the design and development of an anaerobic cabinet for the manipulation of anaerobic cultures. Results of comparative studies on the recovery of anaerobic bacteria show that the quantitative recoveries obtainedb from cultures of strict anaerobes such as Clostridium oedematiens (C. novyi8 type D and C. tetani were not improved by the use of the cabinet. Total count of anaerobes from faecal samples, whether manipulated in the cabinet or at the bench by a careful conventional procedure, were almost identical. It is sub-mitted that the quantitative growth of many anaerobic human pathogens does not require the use of ultra-specialised equipment.

We thank Dr B. S. Drasar for helpful advice and the Agricultural Research Council for financial support (Grant AG 15/57) that enabled us to build the anaerobic cabinet. The Medical Research Council (Grant G 971 /113/B) generously supported the investigations that we report here.