Behind closed doors. Airflow adjusted and filtered. An attempt to keep the bugs in their place.

Humans, wearing white cotton or Tyvek lab coats, keep infectious drops and poisons in their place. More than a tucked-in napkin, sloppy eating does not compare with pure isolated pathogens splashed on your shirt.

The humans name bacteria, not that they need a name for their neighbors and mates, but to make it easier for the scientists to deal with a complex miniature world.

Taxonomy is important, but all the Bergey's manuals in the world can't make the genetic patchwork of living, interrelated cellular bundles stay in their lanes.

Biochemical identification patterns are the keys developed by the great bacteriologists a scant 150 years ago.

Bacterial groups are 100% identified by their biochemical reactions, except for the 10% of identical organisms that are the same but different. The bugs don't read the manuals and, more often than not, raise a rude flagellum to the person looking through the microscope.

DNA probes have revolutionized bacterial identification but are not the answer to all of our identification queries.

Sample processing, isolation, digestion, and extraction are not the same as flashing a medical tricorder our fantasies have promised. Identification of infectious agents is a skill that must be learned. Time and sample flow from room to room is not a simple process.

It matters little if a bug can be stopped by an antibiotic, the life soup of unlimited prokaryotes will shift in Darwin's dance of evolution. Epidemics help no one and no microbe. Is the purpose of a microbe to submerge itself into the background, passing its genetic makeup until the sun explodes? Or is its job to rip through the target population, causing pain, grief, and explosions of miscellaneous tissue for their entertainment?

It would help to know if these prokaryotes thought about what they were doing and had a plan, but no matter how large the accumulation of cells is, they never appear to have and an inkling of intelligence. Except, of course, the 0.01% known as slime molds who don't follow the rules they know nothing about.

Identifying an organism is a Eureka moment for the microbiologist but does little to cure the patient in the hours to weeks it takes to assign a species name.

Invaders making it past the host's defenses are removed with antibiotics for the bacteria. Anti-virals work for the non-living particles. Prions laugh at the complex viruses. They don't even have the courtesy of an outer protective shell and rip through a host with naked folding protein molecules.

Lab work is boring. It always helps to have a plan for identification. A shotgun approach, testing every method with every option mostly works, if you can afford the time, reagents, and patience to dig through the records to find the matches.

Symptoms define the test and point to an answer. Food poisoning? Secondary Infection? Insects? Divine intervention?

Where does the sample come from, where has the patient traveled, food consumed, outbreak, or single point infection? Toss it to the epidemiologist to check on airflow, weather, season, and similar cases? A finite number of options for an infinite number of results.

Sexual contact as male, female, or otherwise. Monogamous, maybe. Not everyone in the partnership is true to their pledges. Solo infections are unlikely, and there is no spontaneous generation of Sexually Transmitted Infections. Who, what, when, where and how many. Not the questions the patient may want and answers are often subjective and frequently lies.

Alternatively, toss in a broad-spectrum antibiotic. If the symptoms come back, add an antiviral. Hope that the infection disappears on its own and the patient's antibody system kicks in before the invading bug wins the battle.

Antibiotics and vaccines may be the reason for the success of our modern society. Drug resistance and ignorance of simple public health actions may be its downfall.