ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses several approaches used in various sophisticated instrumented systems intended to perform one or more of the major phases of a microbiological analysis and can form the basis for the evaluation of acceptability of the instrument. The instrumented system was intended to prepare, inoculate, and incubate the sample mechanically; count and color-match colonies grown on selective media intended for further testing; and under electronic control mechanically transfer selected colonies to specialized media for identification or antibiotic susceptibility testing. There are several instrumented systems designed to apply microcalorimetry to microbiological analysis. An awareness of the need for instrumentation in microbiological analysis became evident in the mid- to late-1960s and has been increasing ever since. The Luminescence Biometer 760® is no longer being marketed for clinical application for microbiological analysis of body fluids due to recent FDA regulations which caused DuPont to discontinue its marketing effort for this application.
