inspissation

1 the process of thickening by dehydration

2 the act of thickening [syn: thickening]

English

Noun

1. The act of thickening. The process by which something is inspissated.

Inspissation is the process of thickening by dehydration. More specifically, it is the process used when heating high-protein containing media; for example to enable recovery of bacteria for testing. Once inspissation has occurred, any stained bacteria, such as Mycobacteria, can then be isolated.

A common example of inspissation is frying an egg; the loss of water from the protein causes the egg to thicken from a gelatinous fluid to a solid.

A Serum inspissation or Fractional sterilization is a process of heating an article on 3 successive days as follows:

References

1. Textbook of Microbiology by Prof. C P Baveja, ISBN 81-7855-266-3
2. Textbook of Microbiology by Ananthanarayan and Panikar, ISBN 81-250-2808-0