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As I have said on a previous page, it was to Johnston, the bacteriologist, that we owe the discovery. It appears that he had been growing some bacteria in cultures; and, whether by accident or design, he had left one of his cultivation media open to the air. On examining the germs some days later, he had discovered in the culture a type of bacterium with which he was unfamiliar. He proceeded to isolate it in the usual way—I believe it is done by dabbing a needle-point into the culture and using the few micro-organisms which stick to the needle as the parents of a fresh colony—and he was amazed at its fecundity. There had never been such a case of bacterial fertility in his experience.

A paper in the Lancet brought the description of the creature to the notice of the scientific world. Johnston himself had not recognised the nature of the organism, as he had never dealt with this type of bacteria before; but from his description an agricultural bacteriologist named Vincent was able to identify it as being almost identical with one of the denitrifying group, from which it differed only in its immense power of multiplication. It was hurriedly christened Bacterium diazotans, on account of its denitrifying qualities. Further examination showed that its capacity for breaking down nitrogenous material far surpassed that of any known denitrifying agent.