Eikenella corrodens

Abstract

It is thought that the first person to describe the organism subsequently known as Eikenella corrodens was Sverre Henriksen, who in 1948 reported the isolation of three gram-negative anaerobic rods with concentrically spreading colonies and a tendency to pit the agar. This corroding of the agar was seen most reliably with strain AJ, a nonmotile organism isolated from a perineal abscess. Two years later, Per Holm found that a gram-negative anaerobic organism resembling the influenza bacillus was often isolated from specimens of pus, examined for the presence of actinomycetes. Because of its appearance on blood agar, Holm proposed calling this organism the “corroding bacillus.” In 1958, Eiken studied 1,097 anaerobes isolated from 798 patients; of these, 61 corresponded in colony and microscopic morphology with the corroding bacillus.