MARKET COLD-STORAGE CHICKENS. 87 



some from sewage. Muller a has isolated 36 species of fungi that will 

 grow at 0° C. from such sources as flesh of fish and cattle, intestinal 

 contents of fish, vegetables, grain, and garden earth. Ten of them 

 were found in flesh and nine in earth. 



Not only are such organisms widely distributed, but very pro- 

 nounced results in nature have been credited to them. Schmelk b 

 believes the green color of the Norwegian glaciers to be due to the 

 presence of B. fluorescens liquefaciens, an organism which he finds in 

 such ice, and which develops rapidly at zero. Glage c ascribes con- 

 siderable importance in the maturation of meat to what he terms 

 " aroma-producing bacteria," organisms which develop in the German 

 "Kuhlhaus," where the temperature is usually from +2 to +5° C, 

 and which he finds infecting not only the rooms, but the carts, 

 trucks, and, in fact, the entire slaughterhouse. Their growth at + 2° 

 C. is rapid; at 37° C. it is very slow. 



That naturally occurring bacteria will develop in milk kept at 

 — 1.67° C, with a fair degree of rapidity and in numbers which finally 

 reach several billions per cubic centimeter, has been demonstrated 

 by Pennington. d Certain species of organisms were found to outrun 

 others so decidedly that they were finally present in almost pure cul- 

 ture. Among such were most commonly found B. solitarius Rave- 

 nel, Bad. aerogenes, B. coli, and B. formosus. However, a number of 

 other species also grew below 0° C, as indicated by plates made and 

 incubated at the temperature at which the milk was kept, namely, 

 — 1.67° C. These bacteria developed in. spite of the fact that the 

 milk was a semisolid mass of crystals, so solid, indeed, that it had to 

 be dipped out of the container. 



A multiplication of organisms in ice cream when kept in a frozen 

 condition, either by packing in ice-salt mixture, which gives a temper- 

 ature of about — 17° C, or in a cold-storage warehouse where the tem- 

 perature varied from — 18° to — 23° C, is reported by Wiley. e Appar- 

 ently there is a series of curves of growth, varying both in periods of 

 time and in intensity for different samples, and, in all probability, 

 depending on the rise and development of a succession of species. 



It is commonly stated that pathogenic organisms do not develop at 

 zero, and, broadly speaking, such is usually the case. That it can not 

 be applied as a sweeping assertion is indicated by the statement of 

 Forster, previously cited, that the bacillus of the plague does grow at 



<* Arch. Hyg., 1903, 47: 127-193. 



& Eine Gletscherbakterie, Zentrbl. Bakt. Paras., 4: 545. 



c Zts. Fleisch- Milchhygiene, 1900-1901, p. 131. 



d Bacterial Growth and Chemical Changes in Milk Kept at Low Temperatures, 

 J. Biol. Chem., 1908, 4: 353. 



e Milk and Its Relation to the Public Health, by various authors, Hygienic Labora- 

 tory, U. S. Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service, 1908, Bui. 41, p. 257. 



