Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2009
In the early 1950s I was involved in the foundation of the National Collection of Industrial Bacteria (NCIB), a sort of bank established in Britain from which strains of industrially significant microbes could be obtained. Today it has grown into the National Collection of Industrial and Marine Bacteria (NCIMB) in Aberdeen and it is part of a valuable network of collections of microbes. The NCIMB has an important function: not only does it act as a reserve of organisms used in industry and non-medical research, but it also keeps typical bacteria involved in spoilage and deterioration, so that technologists can obtain reference strains to compare with those which may be causing trouble. In the early days of the NCIB's existence, parties of visitors used to come to see it. On one occasion a small party of civic dignitaries and their wives visiting the locality from France came round. I never clearly understood why, as it seemed a rather soggy sort of entertainment for the local municipality to arrange. However, I well recall the alarm shown by the wives when, not having at first understood the word bactéries, they suddenly realized they were amid a collection of germes. As one woman they pulled out handkerchiefs, covered their noses and left as soon as they politely could.
Laymen always associate bacteria, microbes and germs with disease. Microbes seem to have a faintly alarming or disgusting aura, and the fact that by far the majority are nugatory or even beneficial is rarely understood. Yet it is so.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.