[The dispersal of pathogens from infected patients shown by environmental culturing (author's transl)].

During a two year's period environmental culturing was done to control hygienic measures, for pedagogical reasons or to trace a source of infection in a large university hospital. Phage typing of Staphylococcus aureus, pyocine typing of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and resistograms and biotypes of Enterobacteriaceae and Acinetobacter were used to compare patient strains with environmental isolates. It could be shown that the infecting organisms can be cultured not only from the site of infection where samples for bacteriological diagnosis usually are taken. But numerous sites of the patients' environment proved to be contaminated with pathogens indistinguishable from the infecting strains. These sites were for example: the patient's hands and other parts of his healthy skin, the outside of wound dressing, bed linen, clothes, floors and nursing utensils. The results convincingly provided reasons for environmental decontamination and for the institution of barrier nursing techniques.