Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface to the first edition
- Postscript
- Preface to the second edition
- Preface to the third edition
- List of contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Classification and nomenclature
- 2 Culture media: constituents and sterilization
- 3 Principles of isolation
- 4 Bacterial characters and characterization
- 5 Theory and practice of bacterial identification
- 6 Characters of Gram-positive bacteria
- 7 Characters of Gram-negative bacteria
- 8 Taxonomy in theory and practice
- 9 Bacterial identification by cards
- 10 Bacterial identification by computer
- 11 Quality control in microbiology
- Appendices
- References
- Index
1 - Classification and nomenclature
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface to the first edition
- Postscript
- Preface to the second edition
- Preface to the third edition
- List of contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Classification and nomenclature
- 2 Culture media: constituents and sterilization
- 3 Principles of isolation
- 4 Bacterial characters and characterization
- 5 Theory and practice of bacterial identification
- 6 Characters of Gram-positive bacteria
- 7 Characters of Gram-negative bacteria
- 8 Taxonomy in theory and practice
- 9 Bacterial identification by cards
- 10 Bacterial identification by computer
- 11 Quality control in microbiology
- Appendices
- References
- Index
Summary
Taxonomy is not every man's meat, but neither is it everyone's poison. It can be likened to a cocktail: a skilful blend in which it is not easy to discern the individual ingredients. In taxonomy the ingredients are (i) classification, or the orderly arrangement of units, (ii) nomenclature, the naming or labelling of the units, and (iii) identification of the unknown with a unit defined and named by (i) and (ii). The subdivisions should be taken in the order indicated, for without adequate classification it is impossible to name rationally, and without a system of labelled units it is impossible to identify others with them or to communicate the results.
Classification
Before discussing the identification of bacteria, the principles of classification and nomenclature must first be dealt with briefly. Since this book is essentially a practical manual, theoretical speculations about the validity of bacterial species (Lwoff, 1958; Cowan, 1962a; Lapage et al., 1975) are not considered.
For this Manual, the concept of bacterial species is therefore accepted as a convenient unit. However, as it so obviously has different values in different groups of bacteria, no attempt is made to define it, or to analyse the qualities that distinguish one species from another. Nor is any attempt made to determine whether a taxonomic group (taxon) is a species, a variety or a subspecies; or to estimate the value or importance of different kinds of bacterial characters (Cowan, 1968, 1970b).
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993
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