Body Temperature Organisms. 63 



generally considerably higher than 10 to i. "With a 

 polluted water this ratio is approached, and frequently 

 becomes 10 to 2, 10 to 3 or even less. " 



In 1903 Nibecker and one of ourselves (Winslow and 

 Nibecker, 1903) made an examination of 259 samples 

 of water from presumably unpolluted sources in Eastern 

 Massachusetts, including public supplies, brooks, springs, 

 ponds, driven wells, and pools in the fields and woods, 

 with a view to testing the value of the body-temperature 

 examination. In many cases the samples showed high 

 gelatin counts, since some of the waters were exposed to 

 surface wash from vacant land, but the average number 

 of organisms developing on lactose agar at 37 degrees was 

 less than 8 per c.c. The highest individual counts obtained 

 were 95 in a meadow pool, 83 in a brook, and 74 in 

 a barnyard well, the latter probably actually polluted. 

 Only two samples in the whole series, one from the well 

 above mentioned, gave any red colonies on the agar 

 plates. 



Important data as to the distribution of bacteria which 

 will develop at high temperatures may be found in a recent 

 paper by Gage (1906), coupled with a suggestive discussion 

 of the general significance of bacterial ratios. The table 

 on p. 64 shows some of the most significant results obtained 

 by plating waters of various degrees of purity at 20, 40 and 

 50 degrees. We have rearranged the lines of the table so 

 as to make the progression from more to less polluted waters 

 a fairly regular one. The colony count at 50 degrees 



