[Nutrition and taxonomy of "Enterobacteriaceae" and related bacteria. I. Technical procedure for auxanograms (author's transl)].

Study of nutritional capacities of 186 strains of Enterobacteriaceae or related bacteria has been undertaken for a taxonomic purpose. In this paper, the auxanographic method is described and discussed. Unlike other techniques in which the medium is supplemented by each substrate, at fixed concentration, the method described here consists in achieving diffusion of the 146 substrates tested as sole source of carbon and energy, in a medium without other energetic substrate. The results of these tests will be described in a further paper.