

W 



PROGRESS REPORT FOR 1920 COMMITTEE ON 

 BACTERIOLOGICAL TECHNIC 



H. J. CONN, Chairman, K. N. ATKINS, I. J. KLIGLER, J. F. NORTON, and 



G. E. HARMON 



Received for publication December 10, 1920 



Committees dealing with various matters of bacteriological 

 technic have been appointed in the past by this Society and by 

 other organizations interested in bacteriology. There have been, 

 for example, the committees on standard methods of water 

 analysis and on standard methods of milk analysis of the Ameri- 

 can Public Health Association, also our committee on methods 

 of milk analysis to cooperate with the latter, and our committee 

 on the descriptive chart. With the exception of the committee 

 on the descriptive chart, all these committees have had for 

 their chief function the standardization of technic and the 

 establishment of official methods. Even the committee on the 

 descriptive chart at first entertained the plan of establishing 

 official methods for pure culture study; but as the work of the 

 committee progressed, it proved that it might have a wider 

 usefulness as an agency through which different procedures might 

 be compared and their relative merits for different purposes 

 established without giving official standing to any one technic. 

 So important did this particular function of the committee 

 appear, and so many similar problems along other lines were 

 called to its attention, that finally the committee on the chart 

 resigned and a new committee was appointed in December 1919 

 to take up in the same manner various points of technic of interest 

 to bacteriologists. A continuation of the work on the chart 

 was assigned to this committee as part of its function. 



The logic of such a committee as a part of our Society is 

 evident. The other bodies with committees on bacteriological 



,^ technic are in general interested in official control work and 



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^ JCTURNAL OF BACTERIOLOGY, VOL. VI, NO. 2 



