ABSTRACT
The history of Enterobacteriaceae is captured in a plethora of books and other publications that have been made available over the last century; these are considerably numerous and available for the avid reader. As but one valuable example, the series of manuals published as the "Identification of Enterobacteriaceae" by Ewing and Edwards (1) serve to acquaint the uninitiated with the astounding number of changes and contributions to the science and diagnostics in this field. There has been a voluminous literature in this area with the generation of many books and reviews that span not only historical events but also contemporary views of clinical disease, epidemiology, basic microbiology, pathogenesis, immunology, and diagnostics. The importance of these bacteria as a group and individually to medicine and science as a whole has been and will undoubtedly continue to be considerable; the contributions which may be solely attributed to Escherichia coli, for example, are monumental in the basic sciences.
