114 
IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
contaminated, and the failure on his part to wash the cans, 
it seems to me, made it not only possible but probable that 
these germs propagated in the milk dippings. A comparison 
of water of the Briley well and the college effluent shows 
that the Briley well had a greater amount of contamina- 
tion than the college effluent from the sew T age filter beds. 
The general conclusion seems evident that the flies 
transferred the organisms from the dejecta which were 
not sufficiently sterilized over to the milk , and thus the 
germs found their way into the milk cans. The pails used 
to carry the milk were simply rinsed with cold water and 
dumped out near the well. The typhoid bacilli no doubt 
developed rapidly in the milk and thus might have found 
their way into the well. 
All bacteriologists recognize the importance of making 
both bacteriological and chemical analyses of water to 
determine whether it is suitable for sanitary purposes. 
Many of our Iowa waters have been examined from a san- 
itary standpoint. In most of our smaller towns the city 
water is derived from deep wells, while the larger cities 
like Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, Burlington, Dav- 
enport, Dubuque, Iowa City, and Council Bluffs derive 
their water from streams. 
The sanitary analysis of water from a bacteriological 
standpoint involves a great many difficulties. Among 
these we may mention the interpretation of results ob- 
tained in these analyses. The earlier bacteriological 
results seemed to indicate the general presence of the 
bacillus of typhoid fever in suspected water. No less than 
half a hundred of these positive determinations are on 
record until bacteriologists began to suspect that the find- 
ing of the bacillus of typhoid fever by these observers was 
an error. It appears, however, from some very careful 
studies made by Kubler and Neufeld* and a few others 
that the B. typhosus has been found in water. Sedgwick 
and Winslowf found that of the typhoid bacillus in ice 
or cool water over 40 per cent will perish in three hours 
* ZEiTSCH.-f. Hygiene. 31: 133. 
f Mem. of the Am. Acad. Arts and Sci. 12 : 467. 
