Overview: Microbiology has undergone a number of metamorphoses in its relatively brief existence. It has been in approximate succession, morphology, epidemiology, biochemistry, genetics, and molecular biology. It is also becoming a significant parcel of cell surface studies. The one embodiment which has remained elusiv- particularly for bacteriology - is the taxonomic one. This may have been a blessing in disguise because it encouraged microbiologists to deal with the general rather than the particular; promoting a search for unitary explanations, in the manner of Kluyver and van Niel, long be
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