A note on the Cause of Certain Red Colorations on Salted Hides and a Comparison of the Growth and Survival of Halophilic or Salt-loving Organisms and Some Ordinary Organisms of Dirt and Putrefaction on Media of Varying Salt Concentrations

Abstract

Hides and calf skins cured with marine salts, especially if kept under conditions of warmth and moisture, tend to develop on the flesh side large areas of brick-red coloration. Similar red colorations have, for many years, been noted as occurring in similar conditions on salted fish, and a number of investigations have been made as to their cause, the first recorded being that of Farlow (1878). Following him were Mauriac (1886), Ewart (1887), Layet (1887), Le Dantec (1891) and, in recent years, Harrison and Kennedy (1922), Browne (1921–22) and Cloake (1923). All these workers have agreed in attributing the red coloration on salted fish to the growth of one or several species of redcoloured organisms, and the more recent workers (Harrison and Kennedy, Browne, Cloake) trace these organisms to the sea salt used in curing the fish, and find them to be chromogenic bacteria only capable of growth in a high concentration of salt. Clayton and Gibbs (1927) have examined many solar brines and salts, and have found that “they almost invariably contain microorganisms which only exist and develop in the presence of abundance of common salt.” Sturges and Heidemann (1923, 1924) have isolated many saltloving organisms from meat-curing solutions, and Le Fèvre and Round (1919) from the brine of pickled cucumber.