Dermatophilus congolensis. II. Brain mass-heart infusion medium for isolation and cultivation

Abstract

Brain heart infusion agar is generally considered the medium of choise for culturing Dermatophilus congolensis. However, our experiments showed that substituting brain mass for brain infusion, allows the growth of a one hundred smaller inoculum (± 10° cells/ml). The brain mass did not change the redox potential of the medium. Furthermore, it was shown that the growth-promoting effect of brain mass only took place when the mass had been finely distributed throughout the medium. In experiments where all the brain mass was left on the bottom of the tube, as used for culturing anaerobes, no growth occurred. The insoluble lipids of the brain mass could be responsible for the favorable effect.