THE BACTERIOLOGY OF THE BUBBLE FOUNTAIN^ 



DOROTHY F. PETTIBONE, FRANKLIN B. BOGART and PAUL F. CLARK 



From the Laboratory of Medical Bacteriology, The University of Wisconsin 



The public conscience has been aroused to the dangers of the 

 common drinking cup as a possible means of spreading disease. 

 Many state legislatures have passed laws prohibiting its use; 

 other states have accomplished the same object by rulings of 

 their state boards of health ; and interstate passenger trains have 

 been compelled to discard the common cup. 



To meet this situation, three substitutes have been recom- 

 mended; first, the individual cup carried and used by a single 

 person, second, the single service paraffin cup, and third, the 

 bubbling fountain. Expense and inconvenience have been large 

 factors in preventing the general adoption of the first two meth- 

 ods. The bubble fountain, however, has met with cordial ap- 

 preciation both on the part of the public and also in the hearts of 

 health officials, and has been largely adopted in this country as 

 the modern hygienic method of publicly providing for all comers 

 drinking water free from possible contamination. 



But is the bubble fountain as constructed at present free from 

 danger? Have we not seized too readily upon an obvious im- 

 provement over the common drinking cup without adequate 

 experimental basis? 



Our attention was drawn to the bubble fountain as a possible 

 source of danger during an epidemic of streptococcus tonsilitis 

 which occurred in the fall of 1914 in one of the women's dormi- 

 tories at the University of Wisconsin. Within a week's time, 

 fifty cases were reported in this building. In studying the situa- 

 tion, it was noted that in this building the water pressure was so 

 low that it was scarcely possible to drink from the bubble foun- 



^ Presented at seventeenth annual meeting of the Society of American Bac- 

 teriologists, Urbana, 111., December 29, 1915. 



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