Bacteria In Sherlock
The first bacteria I can think of in the Sherlock series are Clostridium botulinum and Clostridium tetani both of which are very hard to culture.
They appear/are mentioned in The Great Game.
C. botulinum is the bacteria that produces a potent neurotoxin, which stops your nerves from working. Contamination of food by this bacteria can lead to the clinical illness - botulium which causes flaccid paralysis and eventual death from suffocation if not treated.
This is neurotoxin that Sherlock believes was used to kill Carl Powers. The purified neurotoxin is available to buy as Botox, the beauty treatment, which may be how Jim Moriarty introduced it into Carl’s eczema cream.
This is a screen cap from the show which is meant to represent C.botulinum but there are several small problems:
1. Sherlock has a light microscope and it does not produce images like this in 3D. You get a flat 2D image
2. Clostridia need to be stained before they are visible under light microscopy (you can use gentian violent).
3. Clostridia only produce neurotoxins during sporelation - and you should be able to see the spores under light microscopy
4. After 20 years - only the spores should be left there should be no bacteria unless Moriarty deliberately smeared some on before dumping the shoes.
Clostridia are more difficult to grow because they are obligate anaerobes. Normal oxygenated environments are toxic to them. Usually we grow C. botulium in tryptose sulfite cycloserine (TSC) growth media in an incubator that is kept at under 2% oxygen.
Clostridium tetani, is the bacteria that police original thought might have killed Connie Prince after she cut her hand on a rusty nail in the garden. C. tetani naturally grows in soil (as does many other speices of clostridia) but rusty bits of metal harbour ideal nooks for these anaerobic bacteria to grow and can puncture the skin to introduce the bacteria.
Differentiating between C.tetani and C.botulinum is very simple on light microscopy if stained well. C.botulium has subterminal endospores (the spores are near the end of the bacteria) where as C.tetani has terminal spores producing a classic tennis racket shape. The spore looks as if it is hanging on the end of the bacteria rather than inside it.
If anyone can think of any other bacteria that are mentioned on the show to help thedaughterofholmes out it would be very much appreciated
