Experiments on Spontaneous and Chemically Induced Mutations of Bacteria Growing in the Chemostat

In an earlier paper we reported observations on the spontaneous mutations of bacteria occurring in a continuous flow device we call the Chemostat (Novick and Szilard, 1950a). In this device we maintain a bacterial population in the growth phase over an indefinite period of time by maintaining the concentration of one of the growth factors—called the controlling growth factor—at a low fixed value.