[Comparative investigation on recovering bacteria from the artificially contaminated hand (author's tranls)]

Abstract

A modification of the basin-procedure (PRICE), the plastic-bag-(GASCHEN), the fingertip-(SCHUMBURG) and the glass-cup-method (STORY) were compared in order to evaluate their efficiency to recover bacteria from the artificially contaminated hand. With all 4 methods there was a linear relation between the bacterial content of the contamination and the rinsing fluid in which the germs were collected from the hands (FIG. 1, Tab. 9). The number of recovered bacteria per ml, however, differed greatly with the method used. Without regard to the volumes of rinsing fluid and the size of the offered skin area, both differing with the metheod, the finger-tip-procedure yieleded the highest counts followed by the plastic-bag-, basin- and glass-cup-method (Fig. 1). Compensating the influence of the volume the three procedures first mentioned appeared equally effective (Fig. 2 and Tab. 11). It, however, has to be noticed that the finger-tip-method uses a skin area considerably smaller than the other two methods. The glass-cup-method was the least effective but used on the palm the recovery was still 10 times that of the yield of the back (Fig. 2). Because of its high efficacy, the better exploitation of the subungual spaces and because of its simplicity, the finger-tip-method seems to be the procedure best suited for recovering bacteria from the artificially contaminated hand.