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Drinking water supplies are prone to contamination with sewage or other excreted matter may cause outbreaks of intestinal infections such as typhoid fever. Monitoring and detection of indicator and disease-causing micro-organisms are a major part of sanitary microbiology. By chlorinating drinking water supplies, control of most major disease-causing bacteria can be obtained.

The major concern is about the inability to consistently remove viruses and protozoa and to achieve quality standards for these micro-organisms. Bacteriological tests must be performed constantly to ensure that drinking water supplies are safe for human consumption.

Primarily contamination of water with human fecal wastes would result in viral, bacterial, and protozoan diseases. Although many of these pathogens can be detected directly, environmental microbiologists have generally used indicator organisms as an index of possible water contamination by human pathogens.

Researchers are still trying to establish the ideal indicator organism to use in sanitary microbiology. The following are among the suggested criteria for such an indicator:

1. The indicator bacterium should be suitable for the analysis of all types of water: tap river, ground, impounded, recreational, estuary, sea, and waste.

2. The indicator bacterium should be present whenever enteric pathogens are present.

3. The indicator bacterium should survive longer than the hardiest enteric pathogen.

4. The indicator bacterium should not reproduce in the contaminated water and produce an inflated value.

5. The detailed procedure for the indicator should have great specificity; i.e. other bacteria should not give positive results.

In addition, the procedure should have considerable sensitivity and detection of the level of indicator.

Fish are vertebrate animals, that is, they all have a vertebral column or ‘spine’. There are two main groups of fish, bony fish (Teleosts) and cartilaginous fish (Elasmobranchs). As the common names imply, the skeletons of teleosts are made of bone while the elasmobranchs have cartilaginous skeletons. The elasmobranchs comprise sharks, rays and dogfish which differ from teleosts in many respects. The teleosts are far more numerous, with a greater diversity of species than the elasmobranchs.

All fish are aquatic and breath by absorbing dissolved oxygen in the water using their gills. The bodies of both teleosts and elasmobranchs are covered with scales but those of elasmobranchs are spiky and project through the skin. This makes the skin feel very rough, like coarse sandpaper. The scales of the teleosts have a flattened, discoid shape and are covered by a thin layer of skin and mucus which probably reduces friction between the body and the surrounding water and makes them very slippery.

The swimming mechanism in both groups is very similar. A series of muscular contractions pass down each side of the fish alternately bending it from side to side and pushing backwards and sideways against the water. The water resistance exerts an opposite sideways and forward force on the fish. The sideways forces cancel each other but the forward force propels the fish forward. In both groups there are variations in this method of propulsion. Skates and rays make undulatory movements in the vertical plane as do flatfish like plaice. Some teleosts, such as the sea horse, propel themselves by undulatory movements of their dorsal fin.

In general, the fins contribute to stability and steering rather than propulsion. The median fins, dorsal and ventral, reduce the sideways thrust of the swimming movements and also reduce the tendency to roll from side to side. The paired fins help to steer the fish upwards or downwards through the water and contribute to turning and braking. The paired fins of elasmobranches are held in rather rigid positions while those of teleosts, with their flexible jointing to the body, are more versatile in their movements and can often be seen moving gently to keep the fish in a steady position.

In the teleosts, there is a swim bladder. An elongated, air-filled sac just below the vertebral column. This air bladder keeps the fish buoyant and prevents it from sinking when it stops swimming. The volume of the air bladder can be adjusted to compensate for changes in pressure at different depths. The elasmobranchs do not have swim bladders and so they start to sink if they stop swimming.

Although water is H2O, aquatic creatures cannot use the oxygen from this. The oxygen they breathe comes from the air which has dissolved in the water. There are four or five pairs of gills situated inside the mouth cavity. In teleosts, they are covered on the outside by a bony plate called the operculum. By movements of the floor of the mouth and operculum, the fish creates, a current of water which passes over its gills. Water is taken in through the mouth and expelled through the operculum in the case of teleosts, and out through separate gill slits in elasmobranchs. The gills are, in effect, finely branched, thin-walled blood vessels which, because of their multiple branches, expose an enormous surface to the water and so facilitate absorption of oxygen and loss of carbon dioxide.

Much research on herpes simplex has been executed over the years. Research on this virus continues to be carried out today, as well. Research groups hold clinical and/or laboratory studies to look into the disease pathogenesis of herpes simplex and the body’s defense against it and to examine possible treatments for it. The herpes simplex virus is a good research topic as the immune response of the body to the infection has not been explicitly elucidated. Moreover, although there are effective episodic and suppressive treatment of herpes with anti-virals, a definite cure or prevention for it has still not been discovered or created. Once present in the body, the virus is not completely eradicated and outbreaks or flare-ups can still recur once the host is stressed or suffering from a compromised immune system. This challenge is a good starting point to study different herbs and concoct many drug formulations. Herpes simplex is also a good research topic as a good number of people are infected with it, thus new information about the disease has great significance. What?s more, research has discovered that the infection is associated with Alzheimer’s disease and this finding definitely sparked more questions and required more investigations.

The herpes simplex virus travels along the nerve to get to the skin, producing damage and inflammation of the nerve along the way. What is interesting is that the infected nerve cells or neurons are not destroyed by the host?s immune response. Recent herpes research studies the role of CD1 and NK-T cells in fighting the infection. The study involves extensive laboratory work such as virus culture, in vivo animal work, tissue processing, fluorescent immunohistochemistry, microscopy, northern and western blotting, RT-PCR and in situ hybridization.

For possible treatments of herpes, herbs recently studied include Hypericum Mysorense and Hypericum Hookeranum, which were found to completely suppress the activity of the virus.

Herpes research was able to show the connection between herpes simplex and Alzheimer’s disease. It was discovered that 2/3 of a synthetic protein resembling HSV-1 was similar to the structure and function of beta-amyloid, the agent that accumulates in the brains of patients with Alzhemer’s. The viral protein was also found to twist in a similar manner as those found in the brains of Alzheimer?s patients. This finding points to the manner the herpes virus is acting. Further studies might provide an effective vaccine for the virus.