A simplified system for the identification of staphylococci by multipoint inoculation of test media.

Most hospital bacteriologists have divided staphylococci into two groups: Staphylococcus aureus and the coagulase-negative staphylococci of which the novobiocin-resistant varieties are termed S. saprophyticus. The identification of S. aureus has been easy but that of the other staphylococci has provided some difficulties and most currently available methods are expensive or time consuming. Multipoint inoculation of a set of test media provides a convenient way of identifying large numbers of staphylococcal isolates. In tests with 118 isolates, mainly clinical but including some environmental isolates and some from the National Collection of Type Cultures, there was 90.7% agreement between identifications by the API-Staph system and by the multipoint system. The remaining 9.3% of strains was identified by the multipoint system but could not be identified by use of the data supplied in the API-Staph kit.