Lysis-Centrifugation Methods of Blood Culture

In 1917, Mildred Clough first demonstrated the usefulness of lysis-centrifugation blood culture when she used it to isolate Mycobacterium tuberculosis from blood ( 1 , 2 ). Using this processing method, she was able to recover colonies of M. tuberculosis on solid agar media in just two weeks. The process was complex and time-consuming, and, despite the desirable results, lysis-centrifugation blood culture was largely abandoned until the mid-1970s.