A Bacterium living in Strong Spirit

Abstract

IT is well known that the shipments of rum from Demerara, especially during the past year, have been "faulty," and very great pecuniary loss has resulted to the colony. Through the kindness of a friend and the courtesy of the Excise authorities, we received certain samples direct from a bonded warehouse; we were informed that the spirit had been returned at 42 per cent over proof, equivalent to 74.6 per cent, alcohol by weight; our determinations showed the assessment to be correct. On microscopical examination of a sediment at the bottom of the samples, using a magnification of 1200 diameters, we found chains of small cocci; after the spirit had been kept for some days the cocci were seen to be surrounded with a gelatinous envelope, and after a further interval of time the cocci were found disseminated throughout the liquid, and were rapidly developing and multiplying. The micro-organism, adopting the classification of Zopf, belongs to the group Coccaceæ, and for the present, from our study of cultivations, we are inclined to regard it as a new species; we have already obtained several stages of its life-history, and hope shortly to be in a position to publish a fuller account of its development and the chemical changes which it produces. Meanwhile, the observation of the existence and multiplication of any micro-organism in a spirit of such alcoholic strength appears to be of so much scientific interest, and the problem of its presence of such technical importance, that we send this note as a preliminary communication.