SIGNIFICANCE OF COLON GROUP IN WATER 143 



in regard to the presence of colon bacilli in the intes- 

 tines of cold-blooded animals (particularly fish of 

 various sorts and oysters) and concludes that while 

 they are regularly found in warm-blooded animals 

 they are found often, but not regularly, in cold-blooded 

 animals. The lower the zoological t>pe the rarer are 

 the colon bacilli. 



Alleged Ubiquity of the Colon Bacillus. Many bacte- 

 riologists have gone further and afl&rmed that the 

 colon bacillus was not a form characteristic of the 

 intestine at all, but a saprophyte ha\'ing a wide dis- 

 tribution in nature. The first of this school, perhaps, 

 was Kruse (Kruse, 1894), who in 1894 protested against 

 the arbitrar}' conclusions drawn from the colon test 

 as then applied. He pointed out that the characters 

 usually observed marked, not a single species, but a 

 large group of organisms. As ordinarily defined, he 

 added, " the Bacterium coli is in no way characteristic 

 of the faeces of men or animals. Such bacteria occur 

 everj-where, in air, in earth, and in the water, from the 

 most different sources." Even if the relations to milk 

 and sugar media be considered, " micro-organisms 

 with these characteristics are also widespread." Dr. 

 Kruse gave no experimental data on which his opinion 

 was based. In the same year Beckmann (Beckmann, 

 1894) isolated a bacillus which he identified by pretty 

 thorough tests as B. coli from the city water of Strass- 

 burg, a ground-water which he believed could by no 

 possibility be subject to faecal contamination. Large 

 quantities of water were used for the isolation. 



Refik (Refik, 1896) recorded the constant presence 



