Susceptibility of clinical strains of bacteria to cefoxitin

The susceptibility of 3044 bacterial strains isolated from patients at Auckland Hospital were tested by the disc diffusion of cefoxitin, cephalothin and ampicillin. 86.5 percent of these strains were sensitive to cefoxitin, 71.3 percent sensitive to cephalothin and 41.6 percent ot ampicillin. A significant difference between cefoxitin and cephalothin was observed with E. coli, Klebsiella, Enterobacter and Proteus species. S. epidermidis alone showed significantly less strains susceptible to cefoxitin than cephalothin.