112 BACTERIA IN DAILY LIFE 



microbes, yet the real significance of the whole 

 question from a hygienic point of view lies in 

 the evidence as to the fate of disease germs in 

 aerated waters. 



On this important matter there fortunately 

 exists some precise and conclusive information 

 in regard to the bacteria associated with two 

 essentially water-borne diseases, i.e. typhoid fever 

 and cholera. The investigations made to test the 

 vitality of the anthrax bacillus are of significance 

 as again emphasising the superior degree of 

 vitality possessed by the spore over the bacillar 

 form of this micro-organism, but the chances of 

 this disease being disseminated by water are 

 usually regarded as too remote to excite much 

 interest in the fate of the b. anthracis in seltzer 

 water. It may, however, be mentioned that 

 whereas the bacilli succumbed after being in the 

 seltzer water from fifteen minutes to an hour, 

 the spores were still living after one hundred and 

 fifty-four days. Investigations on the vitality 

 of cholera bacilli in aerated waters have been 

 made by Hochstetter in Germany, by Slater in 

 England, and by Abba in Italy, and these various 

 authorities all agree that the lease of life of 

 these micro - organisms is a very short one in 

 ordinary unsterilised carbonated waters, and that 

 they are in fact destroyed in from half an hour 



