METHOD OF DETECTING AND COUNTING MICROORGANISMS

摘要

The invention concerns a cosmetic or dermatological method for the detection and/or selective quantitative determination of individual microorganisms, or complete groups of microorganisms, on human or animal skin. The method is characterized in that, after taking a sample of the microflora on skin, the sample is mixed with a disinhibition agent. Then placed in a culture medium which offers favourable growth conditions for a particular group of microorganisms but unfavourable growth conditions for other microorganisms, thus initiating selective culture. This selective culture is incubated for a sufficiently long period during which only the group of microorganisms for which the culture medium offers favourable growth condition can multiply, producing metabolic products, in particular CO2, which collect either in the culture medium itself or in a test vessel, provided for the purpose, which contains an indicator. The concentration of the metabolic products is determined from the change in a.c. resistance of the culture medium or the change in the indicator in the test vessel and, after appropriate calibration, can be correlated using computer-based techniques with the number of microorganisms in the culture medium.