Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

  • Freeze-drying

    Cultures of most bacteria may be preserved indefinitely by this means. The several methods in use employ usually phosphorus pentoxide as a dessicant, coupled with the use of a high vacuum pump to expedite evaporation. After primary drying the ampoules are connected to a manifold equipped with multiple exhaust lugs and the pump restarted. After…

  • Forssman antibodies

    Heterophile antibodies. In experimental work Forssman showed that guinea-pig (and some other) tissues injected into rabbits produced heterophile antibody, haemolytic for sheep red cells.  

  • Fluorescent antibody staining

    Identification of bacterial or viral antigen or antibody by the use of fluorescent-dye-tagged antiserum and examination by ultra-violet microscopy. The two dyes most frequently employed are fluorescein isothiocyanate and lissamine rhodamine, giving respectively green and yellow fluorescence.  

  • Fluorescence microscopy

    The identification of cells, bacteria etc. by staining with fluorescent dyes (particularly auramine, rhodamine and fluorescein), the illuminant being a source of ultra-violet or light of other short-wave length. The method has been used particularly in the identification of acid-fast bacilli, and in fluorescent antibody staining.  

  • Eugonic

    Literally ‘easily seeded’, bacteriologically the term implies easy cultivation and is especially used in connection with the mycobacteria. Growing rapidly in culture; said of some bacteria.  

  • Ethylene oxide sterilization

    Gaseous disinfectant for the treatment of heat-labile materials such as plastics and rubber, 10 per cent of the oxide (in a diluent such as CO2), being introduced at pressure between pre – and post-vacuum phases.  

  • Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae

    Causative organism of swine erysipelas. Small and possibly micro- aerophilic Gram-positive bacillus which on occasion shows true branching. Transmissible to man (erysipeloid) and many animals, fish and birds. A species of gram-positive, filamentous bacilli that causes erysipeloid.  

  • Erysipelothrix muriseptica

    Causative organism of epidemic mouse septicaemia, possibly identical with Ery. rhusiopathiae.  

  • Enterobacter liquefaciens

    Psychrophilic species—biochemical reactions affected by incubation temperature. Inositol fermented, adonitol not; gelatin liquefied (more rapidly than is the case with E. cloacae’).  

  • Enterobacter cloacae

    Type species of the Enterobacter group, and formerly known as Aerobacter cloacae or Cloaca cloacae. Liquefies gelatin; does not ferment inositol. A species that, along with E. agglomerans, accounts for most nosocomial infections caused by this genus, especially those due to intravenous line contamination.  

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