Dear Dr. Lederberg:
Yesterday we shipped to you a slant of E. Coli K12-J-2-1.  We grow it on the Grey and Tatum salt solution supplemented with 50 g/ml of L-Histidine.
It contains enough [Beta]-D-glactosidase to liberate 350 [ . . . ] of o-nitrophenol per hour by a sonicate containing, originally, 10 to the eighth cells/ml.
However, I emphasize again, that the bug does not grow on lactose, nor does it adapt to it.
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but prolonged incubation with lactose--18 hours--growth begins but this is due to the extra cellular splitting of lactose by the oozed out enzyme of the dead cells.  We call the phenomenon-among ourselves--necrobiosis.
I have not published any of this stuff since I felt a genetic study of the bug is sine qua non for any report and this I was not ready to do.
Yours cordially
Ernest Borek