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 type the rarer are 

 the colon bacilli. 



Alleged Ubiquity of the Colon Bacillus. Many bacte- 

 riologists have gone further and affirmed that the 

 colon bacillus was not a form characteristic of the 

 intestine at all, but a saprophyte having a wide dis- 

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

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

 the arbitrary 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 

 everywhere, 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 S trass- 

 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 



