SEWAGE CONTAMINATION OF OYSTER BEDS. 197 
the opinion that the oyster ‘* is more frequently liable to the presence 
of colon-like organisms than other species of common edible shellfish.” 
In 1901 Doctor Hill, of the Boston city health department, pub- 
lished the results of the analysis of clams obtained from the Charles 
River flats, which are exposed to contamination from the Boston sew- 
age. These clams contained 2B. coli, B. enteritidis sporogenes, and B. 
aerogenes capsulatus. 
In addition to the above list of experiments, a large number of refer- 
ences might be given to scattered outbreaks and sporadic cases of 
typhoid fever and gastro-enteritis which have been attributed to the 
ingestion of oysters and other shellfish. In most of these cases, how- 
ever, no bacteriological examination of the material under suspicion 
was made, and therefore all evidence is purely circumstantial. . For 
a comprehensive review of this literature the reader is referred to the 
article by Doctor Harrington, ‘‘ Some reported cases of typhoid attrib- 
uted to oysters,” published in the Boston Medical and Surgical Jour- 
nal, Vol. CXLIV, No. 19; to the exhaustive treatise of Doctor 
Mosny, ‘* Maladies provoquées par ingestion des mollusques,” in the 
Revue d’Hygiéne, December, 1889, and January, February, and 
March. 1900; and to an article by Doctor Newsholme, published in 
the British Medical Journal of August 8, 1903. 
Little success has attended the efforts to isolate the typhoid bacillus 
from contaminated oysters. Doctor Klein found it in but one of a 
large number of specimens examined. It was also reported in cer- 
tain oysters from Constantinople. Many experiments have been 
made, however, to determine the conduct of 4B. typhosus in oysters. 
experimentally inoculated with pure culture, and also to determine 
the length of time that the typhoid organism and the vibrio of 
cholera can live in sea water and in oysters and other shellfish. 
Indeed, much more attention has been given to this phase of the 
problem than to the bacteriology of normal oysters. 
Whatever experiments have been made on normal oysters indicate 
that the bacterial content is variable, depending more or less on the 
locality from which the specimens are obtained. Nearly all observers 
agree that ‘‘normal” oysters—that is, oysters living in pure sea 
vater—do not contain £2. colz or other sewage forms ‘‘in their bodies 
or in the liquor within their shells,” and that the bacteria occurring 
in these specimens are species commonly found in water. There is 
little doubt but that the germ content of the surrounding water deter- 
mines, to a great extent, the germ content of oysters and other shell- 
fish living init. If B. coli and other sewage bacteria are present in 
appreciable numbers in the water we will in all probability find some 
trace of them in the shellfish. Doctor Houston, however, is of the 
opinion that ZB. col/ is present in many shellfish from a presumably 
unpoiluted source. In regard to the question as to whether the pres- 
