32 
which streptococci have been found is extremely small. With 
one or two exceptions they are practically confined to the 
samples taken from the Hooghly water in the neighbourhood 
of the town of Calcutta itself. Here, occasionally, strepto- 
cocci of the usual fecal varieties can be isolated ; of course, 
the pollution in these samples is extremely great, as a consi- 
derable portion of Howrah and Calcutta is situated above 
the point of sampling. Besides this, the boat traffic on the 
Hooghly is considerable; the population living entirely on 
boats is estimated at about 30,000 souls. Even under these 
circumstances streptococci can only be obtained from large 
quantities of water, and on few occasions only. Once these 
cocci have been isolated from water in the intake at Howrah 
Water Works. Inspection shows that there is a good deal 
ef pollution of the bank immediately above this. One well 
in a jail which showed rather gross pollution, also yielded a 
few streptococci. 
Out of 378 samples, 151 of which were raw waters, 6 
showed streptococci in 20 c.c.; in all these other evidence of 
gross pollution was obtained, 3 were taken from the Hooghly 
near Calcutta. It may, however, be stated that even in the 
height of the monsoon, when the large rivers contain a great 
deal of gross pollution from the land, streptococci cannot be 
found in 20 c.c. of the water. 
Houston in his report gives a table of his results obtained 
from the raw Thames, Lee and the New River water for the 
year 1909 working with 1 c.c. of the water ; he obtained the 
following results :— 
‘“ Thus 1908 (764 + 896 + 248) sub-cultures were made 
from I c.c. amounts of 156 (52 + 52 4- 52) samples of raw river 
water (Thames, Lee, New River). 28 (13 ~ 13 + 2) of these 
samples contained streptococci and the total number of strep- 
tococci isolated was 7I (Ig + 50 + 2).”’ 
‘“Tt should be noted, however, that in three instances 
(Thames, two sample; Lee, one sample) the 1 c.c. plates 
were so crowded that it was necessary to make the subcul- 
tures from the ov c.c. plates.’’ 
‘“ These results confirm those of last year (1908) and 
show that the raw waters seldom contain any living fecal 
