Improved facility and sensitivity in the use of guinea pigs for the isolation of Legionella pneumophila from cooling tower water.
The established criteria for the determination of the optimum time for the sacrifice of guinea pigs inoculated with samples of cooling tower water were found to be inadequate for the detection of low levels of Legionella pneumophila. By ignoring the requirement for fever and by sequentially sacrificing the infected guinea pigs on days 3 through 5 postinoculation, we simplified the procedure, and the sensitivity of detection was improved a great deal.
D000389:Air Conditioning; D000818:Animals; D001431:Bacteriological Techniques; D006168:Guinea Pigs; D007875:Legionella / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D008297:Male; D014871:Water Microbiology