V. BACTERIOPHAGE TYPING OF SHIGELLA
179
only in one or a few laboratories, so that comparison becomes difficult.
Sets from one region have often been unsuitable for bacterial isolates from
another geographical area, because of a large locally dominating percentage
of untyped or non-classifiable types. Consequently, the desirability of
international standardisation and co-ordination led in 1967 to the establishment of an International Working Group for Shigella Phage Typing. For
S. JEexneri, the Ludwik Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Science, Wroclaw, Poland, serves as
reference laboratory with S. Slopek as the director. For S. sonnei, the
Department of Bacteriology, National Bacteriological Laboratory, Stockholm, Sweden, with L. 0. Kallings as director, serves in the same capacity.
Collaborating laboratories are located in nine countries (Bucarest, Budapest,
Moscow, Paris, Prague, Sofia, Stockholm, Wernigerode, and Wroclaw).
The standardisation reached through the efforts of the working group will
be reflected in the methodology of this Chapter as it has been presented at
joint meetings and published reports of international symposia.
This Chapter will emphasise the current status of phage typing and deal
mainly with S. JEexneri and S. sonnei, which are the two systems that have
received the most attention.
11. TAXONOMY O F SHIGELLA
The genus Shigella is named after the Japanese bacteriologist K. Shiga
who is usually credited with being the first to establish the aetiology of
dysentery (Shiga, 1898). The same microbe appears, however, to have
been studied ten years earlier by Chantemesse and Widal (1888) who only
presented a cursory description of it, but succeeded in inducing ulcers of
the colon in animals. The cultures of the two groups of investigators were
subsequently determined to have the same bacterial properties (Vaillard
and Dopter, 1903).
Much of the very early work centred on S. dysenteriae. In 1900, Flexner
isolated S. JEexneri from American military personnel in the Philippines
(Flexner, 1900a, b). I n 1915, Sonne in Denmark described in detail what
later became S. sonnei. I n 1907, this had been called the dysentery bacillus
type E by Kruse et al. (1907). A number of additional types were described
and the situation was confusing until the Norwegian Thjotta (1919) first
proposed a nomenclatural scheme based on serology:
Type I: Shiga’s bacillus
Type I1 : Flexner’s bacillus and isolates reacting serologically with it
Type 111: Sonne’s type I11 bacillus.
This scheme was later substantiated by an extensive biotyping scheme
179
only in one or a few laboratories, so that comparison becomes difficult.
Sets from one region have often been unsuitable for bacterial isolates from
another geographical area, because of a large locally dominating percentage
of untyped or non-classifiable types. Consequently, the desirability of
international standardisation and co-ordination led in 1967 to the establishment of an International Working Group for Shigella Phage Typing. For
S. JEexneri, the Ludwik Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Science, Wroclaw, Poland, serves as
reference laboratory with S. Slopek as the director. For S. sonnei, the
Department of Bacteriology, National Bacteriological Laboratory, Stockholm, Sweden, with L. 0. Kallings as director, serves in the same capacity.
Collaborating laboratories are located in nine countries (Bucarest, Budapest,
Moscow, Paris, Prague, Sofia, Stockholm, Wernigerode, and Wroclaw).
The standardisation reached through the efforts of the working group will
be reflected in the methodology of this Chapter as it has been presented at
joint meetings and published reports of international symposia.
This Chapter will emphasise the current status of phage typing and deal
mainly with S. JEexneri and S. sonnei, which are the two systems that have
received the most attention.
11. TAXONOMY O F SHIGELLA
The genus Shigella is named after the Japanese bacteriologist K. Shiga
who is usually credited with being the first to establish the aetiology of
dysentery (Shiga, 1898). The same microbe appears, however, to have
been studied ten years earlier by Chantemesse and Widal (1888) who only
presented a cursory description of it, but succeeded in inducing ulcers of
the colon in animals. The cultures of the two groups of investigators were
subsequently determined to have the same bacterial properties (Vaillard
and Dopter, 1903).
Much of the very early work centred on S. dysenteriae. In 1900, Flexner
isolated S. JEexneri from American military personnel in the Philippines
(Flexner, 1900a, b). I n 1915, Sonne in Denmark described in detail what
later became S. sonnei. I n 1907, this had been called the dysentery bacillus
type E by Kruse et al. (1907). A number of additional types were described
and the situation was confusing until the Norwegian Thjotta (1919) first
proposed a nomenclatural scheme based on serology:
Type I: Shiga’s bacillus
Type I1 : Flexner’s bacillus and isolates reacting serologically with it
Type 111: Sonne’s type I11 bacillus.
This scheme was later substantiated by an extensive biotyping scheme