Bacillus subtilis
B. subtilis is an aerobic, endospore-forming, rod-shaped bacterium commonly found in
soil, water sources and among plants (Bacillus subtilis, 2013). B. subtilis and its close relatives
are an important source of industrial enzymes such as amylases and proteases (Kunst, 1997).
This gram positive bacterium is commonly found in the environment rather than in humans and
normally doesn’t inhibit our bodies. However, it has been found that is equally beneficial for the
human body just as any other friendly bacteria is. Originally I gave Ambur the idea to look up
something from slavery and if I was Jewish maybe something from World War II. My mom is
mostly Irish but I already did one of the homework assignments on the potato famine so I wanted
to venture outside of that country. Maybe I wasn’t the one being persecuted during WWII, but
my ancestor were the ones on the other side; I’m also German as well. And what I found was that
Bacillus subtilis was discovered by the Nazi German medical corps in 1941. Multiple hundreds
of soldiers in North Africa abruptly started to die and not from the ordinary bombs and
explosions but from dysentery. Due to lack of antibiotics during this time there became a push to
find something that could stop the numerous deaths of the soldiers. What they had found (from
studying Arabs) was that when an Arab would eat fresh camel poop, the dysentery went away
(Bacillus subtilis, 2013). Why? Because the poop was infused with Bacillus subtilis and B.
subtilis actually phagocytes almost all harmful microorganisms in the body. B. subtilis and
related Bacillus species, in particular B. licheniformis and B. amyloliquefaciens, have a high
capacity to secrete proteins into the culture medium (Kunst, 1997). The Nazi’s then began to
produce the microorganism for their troops and eventually discovered a process to culture B.
subtilis that could be dried and placed into capsules! No more dysentery 
References
Bacillus Subtilis. (2013). Wikipedia. Retrieved from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_subtilis
Kunst, F., Ogasawara, N., I. Moszer, I., Albertini, A.M., Alloni, G., Azevedo, V., Bertero, M.G.,
et all. (1997). The complete genome sequence of the gram-positive bacterium bacillus
subtilis. International Weekly Journal of Science, 390(1) 249-256.