Serratia marcescens, a gram-negative bacillus classified
as a member of the Enterobacteriaceae, has been
recognised as a cause of hospital-acquired infection for
the last two decades. It is a widely distributed
saprophytic bacterium, and has been found in food,
particularly in starchy variants which provide , an
excellent growth environm’ent. While this organism
was known formerly by a variety of names, including
Chromobacterium prodigiosum [ 11, Gaughran et al. [2]
used the name S. marcescens that had been assigned by
Bizio in 1823.