Abstract
A theory to quantitatively characterize the antimicrobial action of drugs on the growth activity of microbes was developed. Growth thermograms calorimetrically observed for the microbial growth cultures in the presence of drugs were analyzed on the developed theory and it was shown that their characteristic changes in pattern can be successfully described in terms of the bacteriostatic and bactericidal effects. In order to quantify this nature in drug actions, an index term “bacteriostatic/bactericidal index, SCI” was proposed to define a degreee of bacteriostatic action relative to that of bactericidal action and the SCI values were obtained for various antimicrobial drugs. It was concluded that the method is useful for the quantitative characterization as well as for the design and the development of antimicrobial drugs.
