Summary
Penicillin is bactericidal for Staph. pyogenes.
Failure to sterilise broth or serum containing Staph. pyogenes is due to the presence of cocci which are called persisters for which penicillin is bacteriostatic and only very slowly, if at all, bactericidal.
Persisters rarely exceed 1 per million of the staphylococci originally present.
Persisters are believed to survive contact with penicillin because they are dormant (non-dividing) forms and because penicillin kills only cocci which are dividing or are about to divide.
Penicillin is inactive against staphylococci in broth at low temperatures, in water at body temperature and in the presence of certain chemical bacteriostats because, under these conditions, the staphylococci present are non-dividing.
Failure to cure staphylococcal infections in man with penicillin is believed frequently to be due to the presence in the body of persisters. A scheme for the treatment of these and other infections, based on the process of fractional sterilisation, is outlined.
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References
Gardner, A. D. (1940)Nature, 837.
Harper, G. J. (1943).Lancet, (ii), 569.
Additional information
Continued from November issue, p. 568.
My thanks are most gratefully recorded to the officers, non-commissioned officers and men of the R.A.M.C. who have served under me in the Command Laboratory in which this work was carried out and without whose willing assistance it would never have been completed.
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Bigger, J.W. The bactericidal action of penicillin on staphylococcus pyogenes. Ir J Med Sci 19, 585–595 (1944). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02948462
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02948462