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104
SODA WATER.
In the course of an investigation into the cause of a case of diphtheria in
May, 1907, it was found that suspicion attached to soda water, which the
patient had been in the habit of purchasing from a City shop.
A sample of this soda water was therefore taken and submitted to your
Bacteriologist, who reported as follows:—
"I received on May 2nd an unopened bottle of soda water for analysis qua
" Diphtheria.
"About 99 c.c. of the contents, after allowing to stand and to sediment, were
"subjected to the centrifuge. With the deposit large plates and tubes were
" inoculated and incubated at 37 deg. C. As a result the following was found:
"The sediment contained an enormous number of microbes; they were (a) cocci,
"(b) some sporing bacilli, and (c) the main mass were small grampositive non"mobile
bacilli which in shape resembled diphtheroid microbes, but they gave no
"Neisser staining, and injected in large doses into a guineapig's subcutaneous
"tissue caused no change whatever, the animal developed no tumour and remained
"quite normal. It is clear from these observations that the chief microbe present
"in the sediment is not the Klebs-Loffler Diphtheria bacillus, although it most
"probably—judged by the character and aspect of the colonies, the shape and
"grampositive staining—belongs to the large tribe of 'diphtheroid bacilli.'
"I was not a little surprised at the fact that this soda water contained such
"abundance of living microbes capable of growing at body temperature.
"The charging of the water with carbonic acid seemed to have left the water,
"no doubt originally impure, in an unaltered state—unaltered, that is, as to its
"abnormal bacterial nature."
In consequence of the unsatisfactory condition of this sample, it seemed
advisable that a general enquiry should be made into the character of the soda
water sold throughout the City, and for this purpose thirty-six samples were
collected from various shops and submitted to bacteriological analysis.

These figures are sufficiently striking to call for further action with a view
of effecting an improvement in the quality of soda water usually sold.