[Resistance to antibiotics and heavy metal salts of coagulase-positive staphylococci belonging to different biological types (ecovars)].

A total of 189 strains of S. aureus isolated from cows, sheep, swines, poultry, monkeys, rabbits, foxes, and humans and 23 strains of S. intermedius isolated from minks and sables were studied. The staphylococci belonged to different biological types (according to the Hajek-Marsalek's scheme) and ecovars (according to the Meyer-Witte's scheme). The strains were studied with respect to their resistance to 10 antibiotics (benzylpenicillin, streptomycin, tetracycline, levomycetin, erythromycin, oleandomycin, neomycin, kanamycin, monomycin, and novobiocin), mercuric chloride and cadmium sulfate. As a whole the frequency of resistance to the above preparations among the staphylococci of the animal origin was not high. Differences in the frequency and range of the resistance between strains belonging to different biological types (ecovars) were shown. The highest number of the resistant cultures was detected among the strains of the biological type E (ecovar canis) and atypical strains of S. intermedius isolated from the minks. The least number of the resistant cultures was detected among the strains of the biological type C1 (ecovar bovis) isolated from the cows. It was found that almost all strains of S. intermedius were resistant to cadmium sulfate. This may be used as an additional characteristic of the species.