The Lactic Acid Bacteria is planned as a series in a number of volumes,
and the interest shown in it appears to justify a cautious optimism that
a series comprising at least five volumes will appear in the fullness of
time. This being so, I feel that it is desirable to introduce the series
by providing a little of the history of the events which culminated in
the decision to produce such a series. I also wish to indicate the
boundaries of the group 'The Lactic Acid Bacteria' as I have defined
them for the present purposes, and to outline my hopes for future topics
in the series. Historical background lowe my interest in the lactic acid
bacteria (LAB) to the late Dr Cyril Rainbow, who introduced me to their
fascinating world when he offered me a place with him to work for a PhD
on the carbohydrate metabolism of some lactic rods isolated from English
beer breweries by himself and others, notably Dr Dora Kulka. He was
particularly interested in their preference for maltose over glucose as
a source of carbohydrate for growth, expressed in most cases as a more
rapid growth on the disaccharide; but one isolate would grow only on
maltose. Eventually we showed that maltose was being utilised by 'direct
fermentation' as the older texts called it, specifically by the
phosphorolysis which had first been demonstrated for maltose by
Doudoroff and his associates in their work on maltose metabolism by a
strain of Neisseria meningitidis.
