| Popis: |
To explain the ccmparative rarity of postoperative ocular infections and the relative scarcity of bacteria on the normalconjunctivae, an antibacterial action of tearsf was postulated many years ago. Numerous attempts have been made since then to demonstrate such an action. Most workers used essentially the same tech nique, which consisted of inoculating various numbers of the organisms to be tested into small volumes of diluted or undiluted tears and plating out constant amounts of the mixtures at intervals during incubation. Bernheim, Bach, Marthen, Ahlstroem, Helleberg, Lindahl, and Meissner all found that staphylococci were killed or inhibited to various degrees by tears but disagreed as to the explanation thereof. Bach and also Ahlstroem considered the inhibit ing effect to be merely the result of the poor nutritive quality of the tears. How ever, Marthen, Helleberg, and also Lindahl added small amounts of broth to the tears and controlled their experiments with saline containing the same amounts of broth. They obtained growth in the latter but not in the tears. Bernheim and Helleberg stressed the importance of the rtumber of organisms inoculated: with too large an inoculum the antibac terial effect was masked. Axenfeld, in his book in 1908, minimized the impor |
