SEA-FISHERIES LABORATORY. 1?1 



Professor Boyce has supplied me with the following 

 facts in regard to the presence and behaviour of the 

 typhoid Bacillus in sea water. 



We showed at the British Association Meeting in 1895 

 that, as was to be expected, the number of micro-organisms 

 in oysters grown in the vicinity of sewage was enormously 

 increased. The organisms present were non-pathogenic 

 for man, and it became necessary therefore for us to 

 investigate the growth of the typhoid bacillus in sea water. 

 The first point of importance is the relative proportion of 

 typhoid sewage to ordinary sewage. The proportion of 

 typhoid faecal matter which may find its way into the 

 sewers has been investigated by Laws and Andrewes, and 

 in one instance in London they gave the proportion as 

 25o!ooo> pointing out, however, that in the case of the 

 fever hospitals every endeavour was made to disinfect the 

 typhoid materials. The same authors were only able to 

 demonstrate the presence of the Bacillus typhosus in the 

 drains in the immediate vicinity of the Typhoid Hospital. 

 Further, from their experiments there seems every reason 

 to suppose that sewage is an unfavourable medium for the 

 propagation of the typhoid Bacillus, and that although 

 when incubated and grown in sterile sewage the organism 

 may show a slight multiplication in the first 24 hours, it 

 soon tends to become extinct. 



Since 1886 a very large number of investigators have 

 shown that drinking and river water may become infected 

 with typhoid sewage, and here again numbers of experi- 

 ments have been made to ascertain whether the Bacillus 

 typhosus propagates in fresh water. Kraus showed that a 

 very rapid decline of the Bacillus and a very rapid increase 

 of the ordinary water bacteria took place when the water 

 was incubated. The most recent observations are those by 

 Frankland and Ward, and they showed that the Bacillus 



