Anaerobic bacteria that metabolize oxalic acid have only recently been isolated from the
rumen and from other gastrointestinal habitats. They constitute a new genus and species,
Oxalobacter formigenes. This report presents the first comparison of cultural counts of these
organisms from human feces and indicates that numbers as high as 10 7/g may be present
in feces from normal humans. Rates of oxalate degradation by mixed bacterial populations
in feces from seven normal humans ranged from 0.1 to 4.8 µmol/(g· h). With fecal samples …