Testing for Antibiotic Sensitivity in a General Hospital

ExcerptExperimental data and clinical experience have produced rules which direct the choice of antibiotic agents in daily practice. Most of the work on which these rules are based was obtained from "virgin" material, virgin in the sense that the microörganisms studied had not previously been exposed to antibiotics. The wide use of these agents has created a different situation. An organism that was originally susceptible may be replaced by resistant mutants in the individual case and eventually throughout its habitat. Perhaps the best known example of this change is that of the susceptibility ofStaphylococcus aureusto penicillin, which has...