Document Type

Thesis - Open Access

Award Date

1972

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department / School

Bacteriology

Abstract

In recent years the pollution problems in rivers and lakes have forced the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration to issue requirements for minimum water standards for each State with an interstate stream. Since the Big Sioux River is an interstate river, studies are needed to determine its quality. According to the South Dakota Committee on Water Pollution, water pollution in South Dakota originates from agricultural, municipal, and industrial wastes. For the Big Sioux River, the municipal and meat-processing wastes are the important sources of pollution. Little is known of the sanitary bacteriological quality of rivers and lakes in South Dakota. Standard methods are available for determining the sanitary indicator bacteria in water (coliforms and fecal streptococci), but there is not a standard method available for the determination of pathogens such as the Salmonella spp. Having understood that the Big Sioux River is an interstate stream, Pierce examined the river by bacteriological methods to demonstrate the presence of salmonellae in the river and developed a qualitative method for isolating salmonellae. He showed the presence of salmonellae in the Big Sioux River by isolating Salmonella enteritidis serotypes Anatum, Bredeney, Derby, Infantis, Javiana, Montevideo, and Oranienburg. He also improved the isolation method by using brain heart infusion (BHI) broth as a pre-enrichment medium. Since the Salmonella spp. present in water are likely to have low viability, they need to be made more viable before being placed into highly selective media. Following this line of reasoning, he used BHI broth as a pre-enrichment step and he proved it by the experimental comparison between lactose broth and BHI broth. Although Pierce developed an improved qualitative method using BHI pre-enrichment and membrane filtration for isolations of the salmonellae, he was not able to quantitatively study the distribution of number and kind of the salmonellae in the Big Sioux or James rivers. Thus, there are two objectives in this thesis study: one, the determination of the distribution of Salmonella spp.; two, the development of a method for Salmonella quantitation.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Salmonellosis
Water -- Pollution -- Big Sioux River

Format

application/pdf

Number of Pages

52

Publisher

South Dakota State University

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