Therecognition ofLancefield's GroupA asthe most,commonly pathogenic membersofthehaemolytic streptococci hasprompted several attempts atdevising arapid cultural diagnostic methodsuch astheaddition ofmaltose orglucose toblood agar, whichalters thehaemolytic activity ofGroupA strains (Kodama,1937;Simmonsand*Wilson, 1941). Thispaper describes theuseofanantibiotic that ismoreinhibitory forGroupA thanforother haemolytic streptococci. Theinvestigation was begunbecause itwasnoticed thatthegrowth of haemolytic streptococci wasinhibited bya contaminating colony ofanorganism subsequently identified asB. licheniformis. Further study showedthattheinhibitory agent wasalmost certainly identical withtheantibiotic bacitracin (Johnson, Anker,andMeleney, 1945)andan extended investigation wasmadeoftheuseof bacitracin fortheidentification of GroupA streptococci.
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W. R. Maxted (1953) studied this question.
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