A microbial examination was made of muscle tissue of beef, pork, and lamb carcasses. Samples were taken shortly after death and after 3 days of storage at 1 C. A majority of the samples did not yield isolates on blood agar plates. The following microbial types were isolated: Staphylococcus, Micrococcus, Sarcina, Streptococcus, coryneforms, Bacillus, Clostridium, Flavobacterium, Pseudomonas, Moraxella, Alcaligenes, Acinetobacter anitratum (Herellea), and yeasts and molds. Staphylococci were predominant among the isolates obtained from the three species. A large percentage of the staphylococci were coagulase-positive. Coryneforms also predominated in the lamb and beef samples. Warm muscle samples yielded a greater number of bacterial isolates than chilled Samples. No psychrophilic bacteria were recovered from the samples.
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Vanderzant et al. (1969) studied this question.