ABSTRACT
I. BACKGROUND AND CHARACTERISTICS The first report on Aeromonas dates back to 1890 when Zimmerman isolated this organism from tap water and named it Bacillus punctatus (1). One year later in 1891, Sanarelli reported the isolation of Bacillus hydrophilus fuscus (2). This article also represents the first report on the pathogenicity of Aeromonas demonstrating that A. hydrophila produced septicemia and other disease symptoms after reinoculation into poikilothermic (cold-blooded) and homeothermic (warm-blooded) animals. Kluyver and van Niel proposed in 1936 (3) that the genus Aeromonas should include the gramnegative rod-shaped fermentative bacteria, which are facultative anaerobes, oxidase and catalase positive, and resistant to vibriostatic agent 0/129 (2,4-diamino-6,7-diisopropyl pteridine). For members of the genus, the minimal growth temperature is 0-5°C, and the maximum, 38-41°C, although some species fail to grow at 37°C. According to Bergey's Manual of Determinative Bacteriology (4), the genus Aeromonas is still included in the family Vibrionaceae together with genera Vibrio, Plesiomonas, Photobacterium, and Enhydrobacter.
