Ecological Influence of Hexachlorophene on Skin Bacteria

Studies were made to determine the effects of hexachlorophene on aerobic bacteria of normal human skin. A test group of adults exposed their toe webs to the exaggerated use of a detergent containing 3% hexachlorophene. A control group followed the same regimen with a similar detergent containing no hexachlorophene. A membrane filter culture technique was used to make semiquantitative and qualitative estimations of the skin bacteria present before and after detergent usage. Both groups of subjects had a significant decline in numbers of cutaneous diphtheroids upon detergent usage. The test subjects showed significantly decreased densitites of staphylococci accompanied by significantly increased numbers of Gram-negative bacilli, a trend not observed among the control subjects. When coagulase-negative staphylococci were inhibited, there resulted an emergence of the Enterobacter-Klebsiella and Pseudomonas groups of Gram-negative bacilli on a moist skin area of adults.