Smear the three-hour surface growth of a peptone culture on a dry agar surface in a Petri dish. From colonies developing make agglutination and, if desired, cultural tests. It is by immunity reactions and not by cultural ones that we identify cholera spirilla. The surface moisture of plates is best dried by the filter-paper top.
The cholera colony is easily distinguished from the ordinary faecal bacterial colonies by its transparent, bluish gray, delicate character.
A practical quick method is to make smears from suspicious colonies, stain for one minute with dilute carbol fuchsin and if vibrios are present to make 2 vaseline rings on a single slide allowing ample space at one end for handling the preparation safely. Inside of one ring deposit with a platinum loop a drop of salt solution and inside the ring nearest the end which is to be held by fingers or forceps deposit a loopful of 1 to 500 or 1 to 1000 dilution of cholera serum. The emulsion in the salt solution remains uniformly turbid and under a low power of the microscope (⅔-inch) shows a scintillating motility. The emulsion made into the drop of serum quickly shows a curdy agglutination and upon examination with the ⅔-inch objective shows clumping and absence of motility. Cover-glasses placed over the two vaseline rings assist in the study of the preparation.
The best-known selective medium for plating out cholera material is that of Dieudonne which is referred to under etiology. Apparently a more satisfactory medium is that proposed by Goldberger, this medium being transparent.
First prepare a 100% meat infusion by treating 500 grams of finely chopped lean beef with 500 cc. water and after three hours strain the infusion, adjust reaction to neutral with 5.3% anhydrous sodium carbonate, then add to each 100 cc. 2½ cc. of the 5.3% anhydrous sodium carbonate, sterilize in Arnold for one-half hour and filter. Next prepare a 3% meat extract agar and mix one volume of the alkaline meat infusion with 3 volumes of the hot melted 3% meat extract agar. Pour plates and cover with a piece of filter-paper and place in incubator for one-half hour until they are quite dry. The necessity for a surface without moisture applies to Dieudonne’s and Krumwiede’s alkaline egg media as well as this one. On this medium cholera grows well while faecal bacteria are restrained.
The cholera colony is clear, round and shows a brownish center but is without that striking bluish opalescence shown on ordinary agar plates.
While peptone solution is a more favorable enrichment medium and answers perfectly when cholera organisms are fairly abundant yet, when scarce, selective enrichment media may be desirable. Of these the best known is Ottolenghi’s alkaline bile. Goldberger prefers an alkaline egg peptone solution made as follows:
Shake up an egg with an equal quantity of water and add to this egg solution an equal quantity of a 5% solution of anhydrous sodium carbonate. Steam one hour. Then add 1 part of this alkaline egg medium to 9 parts of peptone solution, filter and sterilize. Recent reports on Aronson’s cholera medium would indicate its great value in stool examination for cholera. The organisms taken from such plates emulsify easily and there is no interference with their agglutinability. To prepare it add to 100 cc. of 3% nutrient agar, 6 cc. of 10% solution of exsiccated sodium carbonate and steam in Arnold sterilizer for fifteen minutes. Then add 5 cc. of 20% saccharose solution, 5 cc. of 20% dextrin solution, 0.4 cc. saturated alcoholic basic fuchsin and 2 cc. of 10% sodium sulphite. A precipitate forms which quickly settles and plates can be poured from the supernatant fluid. Cholera colonies develop in twelve hours and show as red colonies in fifteen to twenty hours.
Test for cholera red reaction. Add from three to five drops of concentrated chemically pure sulphuric acid to the first or second peptone culture after eighteen to twenty-four hours growth. Some specimens of peptone do not give the reaction. At times we only get the cholera red when we have a pure culture of cholera.