Isolation and Identification of Obligately Anaerobic Bacteria from Bovine Lung Abscesses

For many years, the role of anaerobic bacteria in human disease

was considered important only in such clostridial diseases as gas gangrene,

botulism and tetanus. In the last 10 years, however, the development

of new methods to isolate and identify anaerobic bacteria has established

the pathogenic role of non-sporeforming anaerobic bacteria in a

wide variety of clinical infections in humans. Bacteroides fragilis is

now known to account for approximately one-fourth of all anaerobic

bacteria isolated from human clinical specimens.