The Anti-Bactericidal Action of the Bile Salts

Extract

Bile and the bile salts are substances of great importance in connection with typhoid fever. On the one hand, they are extensively used in differential media for the isolation of B. typhosus from the excreta, and in media designed to cultivate the bacillus from the blood; while on the other, the survival of the organism in the gall bladder and its association with gall stones and cholicystitis indicate that bile may play an important rôle in the etiology of the disease. It would appear therefore that a study of the mode of action of bile in culture media for the isolation of B. typhosus might, apart from its bearing on bacteriological technique, incidentally throw light on the far more important question of typhoid fever and the production of typhoid carriers.