Crystal Violet Binding Capacity and the Gram Reaction of Bacterial Cells

suggesting that crystal violet adsorption values correlated directly with the gram staining char-acter of bacterial cells, and implied that such quantitative dye uptake studies might prove a basis for a much needed quantitative index of gram positivity. Their results are consistent with a popular theory of the mechanism of gram dif-ferentiation presented by Steam and Steam (1926). In a previous paper, the authors (Finkelstein and Bartholomew, 1953) presented a colorimetric method for measuring the maximum dye uptake of bacterial cells. This method then was used to determine whether or not a correlation existed between the gram reaction and dye uptake. The