144 ELEMENTS OF WATER BACTERIOLOGY 



of colon bacilli in water of all sorts, public supplies, 

 wells, cisterns, and springs in the neighborhood of 

 Constantinople, and Poujol in the succeeding year 

 reported (Poujol, 1897) the isolation of B. coli from 

 22 out of 34 waters studied by him in relation to their 

 use as pubHc supplies. The waters were from various 

 sources — springs, wells, and rivers — but all were of fair 

 quality and many quite free from any possibility of 

 contamination. Samples of 100 c.c. were used for 

 analysis. 



Certain Italian observers appear to have come to 

 even less conservative conclusions. Abba (Abba, 1895) 

 found colon bacilli constantly present in unpolluted 

 waters near Turin. Moroni (Moroni, 1898; Moroni, 

 1899) reported the examination of numerous deep and 

 shallow wells and unpolluted springs about Parma, 

 as well as of the public water-supply of the city, and 

 concluded that the colon bacillus was a water form and 

 had no sanitary significance. The characters used 

 for the identification of the species in this case were 

 fairly exhaustive, but both Abba and Moroni used 

 liter samples for analysis. 



Levy and Bruns (Levy and Bruns, 1899) gave a new 

 turn to the discussion by emphasizing the importance of 

 animal inoculation, already suggested by Blachstein 

 (Blachstein, 1893) and others. They claimed that the 

 existence of numerous para-colon and para-typhoid 

 organisms in air, in dust, and in unpolluted water 

 made it impossible to decide by ordinary bacteriological 

 methods whether true colon bacilli were present in 

 water or not. In no case, however, did representatives 



