Studies on the properties of soaps are of importance because of their common use as detergents, in the preparation of vaccines, in the treatment of disease, and because of their natural occurrence in the animal body where they may have some effect in determining the resistance of the animal organism to infection. Reichenbach (1908) studied the action of soaps on Escherichia coli and found that ...

Mycobacterium tuberculosis has enjoyed the distinction, among the nonspore bearing organisms, of being one of the most resistant to chemical disinfection. Quaternary ammonium compounds, widely used as effective germicides against gram positive organisms, have generally proved to be without effect on the tubercle bacillus (Lawrence and Grover, 1951; Smith et al., 1950). Recently, it has been rep...

This paper is the first of a contemplated series of papers describing the germicidal action of various soap derivatives. The ordinary soaps are salts of fatty acids, the fatty acid radical consisting of a straight chain of carbon atoms to the first of which two oxygen atoms are attached, while the remainder are united to each other and to hydrogen. I t is possible to replace one or more of thes...

BACKGROUND 0.5% to 10% of clean surgeries result in surgical-site infections, and attempts to reduce this rate have had limited success. Germicidal UV lamps, with a broad wavelength spectrum from 200 to 400 nm are an effective bactericidal option against drug-resistant and drug-sensitive bacteria, but represent a health hazard to patient and staff. By contrast, because of its limited penetratio...

The bactericidal and bacteriostatic actions of soaps have been recognized for many years. Detailed studies by Eggerth (1) on the germicidal action of soaps have shown the importance of such factors as length of hydrocarbon chain, chemical configuration, effect of hydrogen ion concentration, effect of serum, etc. Avery (2) demonstrated the selective germicidal action of soap on microorganisms, a...

Distilled water suspensions of Legionella pneumophila were found to be sensitive to low doses of germicidal ultraviolet radiation.