NUMBERS OF ENTEROCOCCI IN WATER, SEWAGE, AND FECES DETERMINED BY THE MEMBRANE FILTER TECHNIQUE WITH AN IMPROVED MEDIUM

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Abstract
A highly selective and efficient agar medium was developed for use with membrane filters in the enumeration of enterococci or fecal streptococci in water, sewage and feces. This procedure affords direct counts of enterococci on the filters and takes less time and effort than any other techniques so far described for detection of these organisms. Based on arithmetic mean counts of all samples tested during this study, the ratio of enterococci to coliforms was 1.91 for the water samples, 1:1.7 for the sewage samples, 1.6:1 for fecal samples from human beings and 15:1 for fecal samples from animals. These are the largest ratios of enterococci to coliforms so far reported for such samples. With this membrane filter technique, the detection of enterococci should prove to be a most efficient and accurate method for determining the sanitary quality of water or other materials.