THE ACTION OF CERTAIN BACTERIA ON THE 
NITROGENOUS MATERIAL OF SEWAGE 
KE. G. BirGe 
Edward Grant Birge was born April 24, 1881, at Leip- 
zig, Germany, at which time his father was studying at 
the University of Leipzig. 
Educated in the public schools at Madison, Wisconsin, 
graduating from the high school in 1899. 
Entered the University of Wisconsin in the fall of that 
year where he took the premedical course, graduating in 
1903. 
Entered Johns Hopkins, graduating with the M. D. 
degree in 1907. 
For three years was bacteriologist with the Sewerage 
Commission of the city of Baltimore, going from there 
to Altoona, Pennsylvania, where he became bacteriolo- 
gist for the Pennsylvania railroad. 
In the fall of 1912 he went to Harvard Medical School 
as assistant to Dr. Milton J. Rosenau in the department 
of Hygiene and Preventive Medicine. 
-In 1914 he went to Florida as State Bacteriologist 
where he remained until the United States went into the 
war. 
In April, 1917, he volunteered with the Medical Re- 
serve Corps and was given the commission of Captain. 
He was sent to Fort Oglethorpe in August of that 
year where he remained for nearly a year. From there 
he was sent to Camp Beauregard, Louisiana, and then to 
Camp Wadsworth, Spartanburg, North Carolina. He re- 
ceived his discharge in August, 1919, going immediately 
to the University of Iowa as Professor of Bacteriology 
and State Epidemiologist, which position he filled until 
his death from influenza on February 4, 1920. 
The bio-chemical work which has been done on sewage in 
the past has been confined almost entirely to the changes 
taking place in the various forms of filter beds. We have 
then considerable information concerning bacterial action in 
the filter beds, but our knowledge of this action in the septic 
tank is in a more chaotic state. What little we know is the 
‘“mass action”’ of all organisms, bacterial and otherwise, which 
play a role in the preparation of sewage for further treat- 
ment. 
The primary object of this paper, which must be considered 
as preliminary, is to determine what certain individual species 
