A Suggestion respecting the Bacteriostatic Metabolic Products of Moulds

Abstract

IN view of the variability of many fungi and the possibility that moulds and bacteria may be mutually biologically antagonistic when growing in the same medium, it is perhaps not too fanciful to suppose that repeated culture of a mould and pathogenic bacteria together may develop increased production of bacteriostatic metabolic products of the former. Various forms of the assumed antagonism can be imagined, and competition for a common growth factor is probably the simplest. Furthermore, provided such antagonism exists, it is easy to see that in still or viscous media the mycelial nuclei that contained cells producing the bacteriostatic substance would have the greater survival value.