NA TURE 



469 



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1S94. 



BACTERIA IN WATER. 

 Micro-Organisms in Water; their Significance, Identi- 

 Jication, and Removal. By Prof. Percy Frankland and 

 Mrs. Percy Frankland. (London : Longmans, Green, 

 and Co., 1S94 > 



OX perusing this volume, there can be left no doubt 

 in the mind of anyone who has paid attention to 

 the enormous progress in the knowledge of micro- 

 organisms in water, that the authors have succeeded in 

 producing a work which testifies to a full and accurate 

 survey of the subject, and to a large amount of original 

 observations carried out by the modern approved 

 methods. For these reasons we venture to say that this 

 volume will occupy the position of a valuable text-book 

 and standard work on the subject of micro-organisms 

 in water. The views which the authors, in common with 

 modern sanitarians, hold as to the relative value of the 

 chemical and biological examination of potable waters, 

 deserves special attention on behalf of some distinguished 

 :hemists, on whose mind the whole progress of bacteri- 

 ological science seems to have as yet made but little 

 impression ; in this connection we quote, from p. 117, 

 chapter v., the authors' statement which, being those of 

 a distinguished chemist, it is to be hoped will have the 

 desired effect : — " If water which is known to have 

 received sewage matters (and the entire exclusion of 

 s ich from supplies drawn from rivers is practically im- 

 possible) is to be supplied for dietetic use, and if this 

 water, as is so often the case, is not objectionable on 

 account of the absolute quantity of organic matter, as 

 revealed by chemical analysis, which it contains, but 

 only of the suspicious origin of a part of this organic 

 matter, then it is evident that in the purification of such 

 water the point to be taken primarily into consideration 

 is how the organic life it contains can be reduced to a 

 minimum.' The authors might have further added that 

 the chemical analysis only of such waters is for sanitary 

 purposes of little practical use, since a water may contain 

 less than the recognised amount of organic matter, and 

 yet be dangerous for drinking purposes on account 

 of the presence in it of some undesired pathogenic 

 microbes. The amount of organic matter and the pre- 

 sence of these latter in water need not, and in some cases 

 ic.g. the well-known outbreak of typhoid fever at Cater- 

 ham 1 do not bear a constant or a definite relation to one 

 another. As a more recent illustration of this kind, the 

 well-known instance of the cholera in Hamburg and 

 Altona in 1S92 may be quoted. 



.-\s is well known, Hamburg and Altona (p. 152) " are 

 dependent upon the river Elbe for their water supply, 

 but whereas in the case of Hamburg the intake is 

 situated above the city, the supply for Altona is abstracted 

 below Hamburg after it has received the sewage of a 

 population of close upon Soo,ooo persons. The Ham- 

 burg water was therefore, to start with, relatively pure 

 when compared with that destined for the use of Altona. 

 But what was the fate of these two towns as regards 

 cholera ? Situated side by side, absolutely contiguous 

 in fact, with nothing in their surroundings or in the 

 NO. 1298, VOL. 50] 



nature of their population to especially distinguish them, 

 in the one (Hamburg) cholera swept away thousands, 

 whilst in the other Altona) the scourge was scarcely felt." 

 . . . "The Hamburg water, to start with, was relatively 

 pure when compared with the foul liquid abstracted from 

 the Elbe by .Altona ; but whereas in the one case the 

 water was submitted to careful filtration thro\igh sand 

 before delivery, in Hamburg the Elbe was distributed in 

 its raw condition as taken from the river." Here we 

 have water coming originally from the same source, 

 which was yet widely different in biological respects for 

 the two sets of consumers : — 



(a) Hamburg water, chemically comparatively pure. 

 {b) .-Mtona water, chemically foul, owing to great 

 sewage pollution ; yet the Hamburg water proved deadly 

 because rich in cholera germs, while the Altona water, 

 from which most of these germs had been removed by 

 careful filtration, but chemically still impure, did little 

 harm. 



Prof. Percy Frankland, when before the Royal Com- 

 mission on Metropolitan Water Supply, seemed to have 

 resented a statement made by myself before that Com- 

 mission as to the comparatively small value that sanitarians 

 attribute to a purely chemical analysis of water ; inasmuch 

 as he (Prof. Frankland) quoted the very water of Hamburg 

 as proving the importance of chemical analysis. He said 

 that the Hamburg water which he had examined for the 

 editor of the British Medical Journal, would already, on 

 chemical grounds, have been condemned as unwholesome 

 water. But he was immediately after this answer con- 

 fronted with the information not then known to him 

 (Prof. Frankland), given to him by one of the Com- 

 missioners, viz. that the population of Altona drank with 

 comparative immunity the same water, only chemically 

 more polluted, the difference between the two waters being 

 that the Hamburg water w-as consumed unfilteted, while 

 the Altona water was filtered before delivery. From 

 what we have quoted above, it is satisfactory to find that 

 Prof. P. Frankland, in common with others, does not 

 attribute great value to chemical analysis alone. 



The subject of preparation of culture media for bacterio- 

 scopic water-analysis, and of the methods of isolation of 

 micro-organisms from water, are treated in a fairly ex- 

 haustive manner in chapter i. We miss, however, the 

 description of the methods of making agar plates, 

 probably because the authors as a rule used only gelatine 

 plates. Chapter ii. gives a detailed description of the 

 methods of staining bacteria. It is not quite clear where, 

 in the examination of micro-organisms in water, the stain- 

 ing of sections of tubercle, leprous, and other pathological 

 tissues comes in ; at any rate, if quoted, it might as well 

 have been quoted more perfectly. Chapter iii. deals with 

 the examination of water for micro-organisms ; chapter 

 iv. with the bacterial contents of vatious waters, of rivers, 

 lakes, wells, springs, sea-water, ice, hail, rain, &c. ; 

 chapter v. with the purification of water for drinking 

 purposes by the various filters in use on large and small 

 scales, sterilisation by heat, subsidence, chemical treat- 

 ment, &c. ; and chapter vi. on the multiplication of the 

 micro-organisms in water. AH these subjects are 

 treated in great detail, both on account of the large 

 amount of bibliography, as also on accoun of a con- 

 siderable amount of work contributed by the authors 



