This study discovered that numbers of S. aureus and coagulase negative staph/micro cocci (CNS/M) correlated between contact plate sampling and the surface wash technique of Williamson and Kligman, 1965. No correlation was found for the diphtheroids. One way analysis of variance across atopic dermatitis (A. D. ) scores showed a trend of increasing S. aureus counts with increasing A. D. score for the contact plate method (p< 0.001) and to a lesser extent for the surface wash technique (p <0.001). It is suggested that defective delta-6-desaturase (an enzyme of unsaturated fatty acid metabolism) function could be the cause of the abnormal bacterial flora of A. D
