« 
446  ON  ORGANIC  MATTER  IN  WATER. 
ON  ORaANIC  MATTER  IN  WATER. 
By  Dr.  Heisch. 
The  author  was,  some  time  ago,  called  on  to  assist  a  large  manu- 
facturer of  lemonade,  who  suddenly  found  it  impossible  to  make 
lemonade  that  would  keep  ;  after  a  day  or  two  it  became  turbid, 
and  its  odor  anything  but  agreeable.  On  examining  the  liquid 
under  the  microscope,  it  was  found  fall  of  small  spherical  cells, 
with,  in  most  cases,  a  very  bright  nucleus. 
After  investigating  all  the  materials  employed,  the  water  was 
detected  to  bear  the  fault.  On  putting  a  few  grains  of  the  purest 
crystalline  sugar  into  some  of  the  water,  it  became  turbid  in  a 
few  hours,  and  contained  the  cells  previously  described. 
On  inquiry.  Dr.  Ileisch  found  that  some  digging  had  been 
^oing  on  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  well  from  which  the  water 
came  ;  and  that,  througli  this  circumstance,  some  drainage  must 
have  got  into  the  well.  This  led  the  experimenter  to  try  vari- 
ous samples  of  w^ater  in  the  same  manner;  and,  in  every  case 
where  diarrhoea  or  other  mischief  could  be  traced  to  the  use  of  a 
certain  water,  when  that  water  was  treated  with  sugar,  the  same 
cells  made  their  appearance  usually  within  twenty-four  hours,  if 
kept  at  60°  to  70°,  and  plenty  of  light  was  admitted  to  the 
bottle  containing  the  fermenting  liquid. 
Believing  sewage  to  be  the  source  of  these  cellular  germs. 
Dr.  Heisch  mixed  a  minute  quantity  of  sewage  with  a  sugar-solu- 
tion which  had  been  previously  ascertained  to  be  free  of  cells, 
and  found  the  solution  very  soon  to  contain  these  germs.  A 
number  of  experiments  were  made  to  find  out  whether  other  sub- 
stances than  sewage  or  sewage- water  were  capable  of  producing 
organisms  of  similar  kind  when  placed  into  a  sugar-solution  ;  but, 
though  in  a  few  cases  some  growths  were  produced,  they  never 
resembled  the  cells  originated  by  sewage.  In  all  the  experiments 
with  sewage,  wdiere  the  particular  cells  made  their  appearance, 
a  butyric  odor  also  was  perceptible.  Filtering  the  water  through 
the  finest  Swedish  paper  does  not  remove  the  germs.  Boiling 
for  half  an  hour  in  no  way  destroys  their  vitality.  Filtration 
through  a  good  bed  of  animal  charcoal  seems  to  be  the  only  efi'ec- 
tual  mode  of  removing  them;  but  it  is  necessary  to  air  the  char- 
coal from  time  to  time,  else  it  loses  its  purifying  power. 
