scope:

Purpose and Scope

The objective is to detect bacteriostatic activity on textile materials. The results of using this procedure have been demonstrated by Committee RA31 to be reproducible by various laboratories working with materials containing residual amounts of antibacterial agents (as determined by chemical assay) after multiple standard washings. The method is useful for obtaining a rough estimate of activity in that the growth of the inoculum organism decreases from one end of each streak to the other and from one streak to the next resulting in increasing degrees of sensitivity. The size of the zone of inhibition and the narrowing of the streaks caused by the presence of the antibacterial agent permit an estimate of the residual antibacterial activity after multiple washings.