CHAPTER VII 

 Routine Tests for the Identification of Bacteria 



H. J. Conn, M. W. Jennison, and O. B. Weeks 



INTRODUCTORY 



The Society of American Bacteriologists issues descriptive charts for 

 use in characterizing bacterial species. The charts are blank forms to be 

 recorded, at least one chart to be used for each culture studied. The 

 ''Manual of Methods for Pure Culture Study of Bacteria" was originally 

 published to secure uniformity in the methods used for determining these 

 characteristics. The present ''Manual of Microbiological Methods" 

 has become much broader than this, and practically all the methods 

 covered in the first editions of the original manual are now included in 

 this chapter. 



The methods described in this chapter are intended primarily for 

 aerobic saprophytes and cannot therefore be considered applicable in 

 general to strict anaerobes, nutritionally "fastidious" organisms, and 

 bacteria having other "special" cultural characteristics. Chapter VI 

 must be consulted in studying the latter group, while Chap. IX gives 

 methods specially applicable to animal pathogens. Special methods for 

 plant pathogens are given in Chap. XII. In the case of other special 

 groups, the investigator will therefore be forced to modify the methods or 

 to use others more suited to the group in question. 



THE DESCRIPTIVE CHARTS 



There are two descriptive charts, each printed on 83-^- by 11-in. sheets 

 of heavy paper: the Standard Descriptive Chart and the Descriptive 

 Chart for Instruction. The general plan of each is to have the body of it 

 consist, under various headings, of a series of blanks to be completed and 

 descriptive terms to be underlined as the various characteristics of the 

 cultures are determined. In addition to this, there is a place on the mar- 



140 



