Although it has been repeatedly observed that the thermal death time of bacteria is dependent upon the temperature employed (the influence of the initial concentration of bacteria, have been ignored by a number of workers. When this factor is considered, the thermal death time follows a regular order which is adequately described by applying the equation for the "mono-molecular reaction rate" (Baker and Mc-Clung, 1939;Bigelow, 1922;Chick, 1910;Madsen and Nyman, 1907). This has been generally ignored by workers interested in thermal death, and as a result the literature contains a number of conflicting statements in this regard. This has made it difficult to evaluate some of the bactericidal aspects of the pasteurization process. As an aid in quantitative determinations of bacterial death by heat, the authors have proposed the concept of "decimal reduction time" (Katzin and Sandholzer, 1942) which is based upon the application of the monomolecular reaction rate constant to bacterial death under uniform conditions. The purpose of this study is to illustrate the application of this principle to the problem of the use of coliform bacteria as indicators of the sanitary status of pasteurized milk.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
CulturesIn all, 66 strains of Escherichia were employed. These were originally isolated from a variety of sources including human, monkey, bovine and sheep feces, human blood, soil, milk, water, urine and oysters. The initial source of some of the older laboratory strains is uncertain.
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