Abstract

During a four-month period an intensive effort was made to isolate and identify every Serratia marcescens strain present in the clinical material received for bacteriological assessment in the laboratory. Ten strains were isolated from eight patients, the organism possibly being responsible for infection in five of these patients. Serratia marcescens is thus commoner than expected and it is difficult to explain the fact that there are so few references to it as a pathogen in the British literature.