Pollution of Beaches: Reply to Regnier and Park

Abstract

Regnier and Park¹ do not appear fully to have appreciated the significant point that emerged from my finding² that much higher concentrations of antibiotic-resistant and sensitive coliform organisms were present in specimens of water taken from rivers flowing through urban areas than were present in similar specimens taken from rivers flowing through rural areas. This is that human beings were the main source of the sewage pollution of the rivers and that domestic animals were a comparatively unimportant source. The fact that one cannot differentiate the two kinds of specimens from each other by reference to the ratio of the numbers of resistant and sensitive organisms they contain is therefore irrelevant.