Culture Media Tube: Blood Serum, Loeffler's Mixture for Diphtheria. No. 8
date: label: date made
content: 1898
name: label: maker
content: Parke, Davis and Company
notes: label: Description
content: Glass test tube with paper label and cotton wool stopper. Dried culture media in tube. Paper label has lines for recording "Name" and "Date". The tube is one of 50 tubes in the Parke, Davis & Company Culture Media Set (MG.142336.01).
label: Description
content: According to Lehman's Atlas and Essentials of Bacteriology, 1897, Loeffler's serum is made with three parts of beef or sheep serum mixed with one part calf's bouillon, which contains 1% grape sugar, 1% peptone, and 1/2% sodium chloride. The serum is used for culturing <i>Corynebacterium diphtheriae</i>, the bacterium that causes diphtheria. In diagnostic work, the culture tube was innoculated with a specimen from the throat of the patient. (See MG.142336.11 for an example of a sterile throat swab.) German bacteriologists, Friedrich Loeffler (1852–1915) and Edwin Klebs (1834–1912), are credited with discovering the diphtheria bacillus in 1884.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Michigan, Detroit
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Medicine
label: See more items in
content: Health & Medicine
label: See more items in
content: The Antibody Initiative
label: See more items in
content: Antibody Initiative: Diphtheria
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Parke, Davis & Company
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MG.142336.10
label: catalog number
content: 142336.10
label: accession number
content: 33542
objectType: label: Object Name
content: culture media test tube, diphtheria
label: Object Name
content: biological
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: blood serum culture media (contents material)
label: Physical Description
content: glass (container material)
label: Physical Description
content: cotton wool (container material)
label: Physical Description
content: paper (container material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 3 5/8 in x 7/8 in; 9.2075 cm x 2.2225 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 9 cm x 2.2 cm; 3 17/32 in x 7/8 in