STUDIES RELATING TO THE ACETONE-PRODUCING ORGANISMS

Abstract

On account of their technical, and more recently, possibly patho logical importance, the chemical changes accompanying the production of acetone by the fermentation of starch from various raw materials have been studied by numerous workers.Problems awaiting solution are : (i) the longevity of the spores of the organisms, (2) the exact method of their nutrition, e.g., whether they attack the starch molecule as such or only after partial hydrolysis, (3) whether they are capable of directly fermenting sugars under any conditions, and (4) the discovery, if possible, of the function of the numerous acetone-producing organisms in nature, as they appear to be widely distributed ; although differing among themselves, they belong to the same general type and are all obtainable from cereal grains by suitable methods of sub-culture.