ISOLATION OF SPECIFIC PATHOGENES 95 



The second great division of the colon-typhoid 

 bacteria is the hog cholera group, or the Gartner group, 

 as Durham (1898) called it. As defined by him, it 

 differed from the tj^phoid group by gas formation in 

 dextrose, and from the colon group by the production 

 of a final alkaline reaction in milk. It includes the 

 Gartner bacillus (B. enteritidis), the hog cholera bacillus 

 (B. cholerae suis), and the paratj^Dhoid bacilli. Some 

 of these forms, the paratyphoid bacilli, for example, 

 and B. enteritidis (isolated in cases of meat poisoning), 

 produce intestinal disease in man. 



There is no doubt that water is sometimes the 

 means of distributing the germs of dysentery and 

 diarrhoea, as shown by the decrease of these diseases 

 in Burlington, Vt., (Sedgwick, 1902), and other com- 

 munities where pure water-supplies have been sub- 

 stituted for polluted ones. Thresh (Thresh, 1903) 

 described an epidemic of over 1000 cases of diarrhoea 

 with 14 deaths, which occurred in England at Chelmsford 

 and Widford, and was undoubtedly spread by the 

 public water-supply. A somewhat similar epidemic 

 of dysentery occurred in Warren and Kittanning, in 

 Pennsylvania, in 1906, which was unquestionably due 

 to contamination of the water, in this case a river- 

 supply. It is possible that the examination of water 

 for the B. dysenteriae may in the future help to 

 throw important light on the sanitary condition of 

 a water. 



Starkey (1909 and 191 1) believes that all organism? 

 giving the general reactions of the Gartner and para- 

 typhoid groups are significant and warrant the con- 



