Category: C
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Clot culture
Method of blood culture in which serum is removed from clotted blood: a broth including streptokinase is added to the latter, which rapidly lyses. Incubation and subculture follow as in other methods.
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Clostridium welchii
Large, non-motile clostridium, and the species most frequently causing gas gangrene. Totally anaerobic and saccharolytic, 6 types (A—F) of the organism occur, differing in the toxins they produce. Alpha toxin (a lethicinase), is the most lethal of these; others are beta, epsilon, iota, gamma, delta, eta, theta, kappa, lambda, mu and nu and other toxins…
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Clostridium tertium
Saccharolytic species, non-toxic, not entirely anaerobic, and though producing gas in wounds, not of confirmed pathogenicity.
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Clostridium sporogenes
Motile species, saprophytic, but often occurs mixed with pathogenic Clostridia. Highly heat-stable spores. Proteolytic and saccharolytic. A species frequently associated with other organisms in mixed gangrenous infections.
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Clostridium septicum
Frequently implicated in gas gangrene in man, and like conditions in farm animals. Saccharolytic motile organism forming swollen ‘citron’ shapes when growing in tissue. Possesses antigenic and other similarities to Cl. chauvoei. A species found in cases of gangrene in humans, as well as in cattle, hogs, and other domestic animals.
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Clostridium sordellii
Probably synonymous with Cl. bifermentans, and the term is often reserved for pathogenic forms of that species. A species that may cause anaerobic infections in bones, joints, soft tissues, the uterus, and elsewhere.
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Clostridium oedematiens
Species often implicated in severe gas gangrene in man, and similar conditions in sheep and cattle. The organism is saccharolytic but not proteolytic, and 4 antigenic types (A,B,C,D) occur.
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Clostridium histolyticum
Species occasionally causing gas gangrene. Proteolytic, not strictly anaerobic. A species found in cases of gas gangrene.
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Clostridium fallax
Occasionally implicated in gas-gangrene, this species resembles Cl. welchii in some ways.
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Clostridium bifermentans
Species occasionally implicated in gas gangrene. Decomposes both proteins and carbohydrates. May be saprophytic or pathogenic; if pathogenic then it is exotoxic.