256 BACTERIOSCOPICAL EXAMINATION OF ICE SUPPLIED IN SYDNEY, 



NOTES ON THE BACTERIOSCOPICAL EXAMINATION 

 OF ICE SUPPLIED IN SYDNEY. 



By Dr. Oscar Katz. 



The old-fashioned opinion that water in the frozen state, i.e., 

 as ice, is free from any germs of vegetable micro-organisms, how- 

 ever impure the original water may have been, has, under the 

 weight of modern methods of biological i^esearch, had to give way 

 to a contrary view. By recent investigations it has been shown 

 that not only are bacteria capable of enduring a temperature of 

 0° C, and even a greater cold, but are also endowed with the 

 power of developing after having been exposed to excessively cold 

 temperatures, for a considerable length of time. 



C. Frankel* examined by means of an extended series of 

 culture-experiments, different samples of ice from the supply in 

 Berlin, both natural raw ice and artificial or crystal ice made 

 from ordinary well-water as well as from distilled water. He 

 found that with the exception of ice prepared from distilled 

 water, in which case bacteria were almost entirely absent, the ice 

 never corresponded to the demands of modern hygiene, in so far 

 as it contained too large an amount of bacterial germs. 



T. M. Pruddenf, investigating the natural raw ice consumed in 

 New York, likewise noticed in the samples an abundance of 

 living micro-organisms, the number of which exceeded consider- 

 aV)ly the average number in the drinking water of that city. 



* " Ueber den Bacteriengehalt des Eises." Zeitschr. f. Hygiene, Bd. I., 

 Heft 2, Leipzig, 1886, pp. 302-314. 



+ "0n bacteria in ice and their relation to disease, with special reference 

 to the ice supply of New York City." Medical Record, 1887, Nos. 13, 14. 

 — Abstract in Centralblatt f. Baktetiologie und Parasitenkuude, Bd. I., 

 No. 22, 1887, p. 650. 



