560 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



NATUEE OF VIEUS OF INFECTION MATTEE. 



M. Chauveau, in a communication published not long since, 

 announced that the specific agent of virus from vaccine, 

 charbon, small-pox, glanders, etc., is concentrated in very fine 

 corpuscles, known under the general name of molecular gran- 

 ules ; and, second, that the liquor or plasma in which these 

 granules float is in itself inactive, as also the associated white 

 globules or leucosites. 4.Z?, October, 1871, 698. 



ACTION OF THE GASTEIC JUICE ON CALOMEL. 



Professor Tuson has been experimenting upon the effect of 

 the constituents of the gastric juice upon mineral substances, 

 especially those employed as medicines, and for this purpose 

 prepared, first, a mixture of calomel and distilled water con- 

 taining two per cent, of hydrochloric acid ; second, a mixture 

 of calomel, pepsin, and distilled water; and, third, a mixture 

 of calomel, pepsin, and distilled water containing two per 

 cent, of hydrochloric acid. These mixtures were placed in 

 glass vessels, and kept at 100 Fahr. for twenty-four hours, 

 being shaken occasionally. They were then thrown on to 

 inters of Swedish paper, and the filtrates saturated with hy- 

 dros ulphuric acid. 



The filtrates from experiments numbered one and two re- 

 mained unaltered, while number three yielded a black pre- 

 cipitate of sulphide of mercury. These experiments, there- 

 fore, show that neither dilute hydrochloric acid (two per 

 cent.) nor pepsin alone is capable of dissolving calomel, but 

 that, when these agents are mixed, they do effect its solution, 

 and, consequently, that the digestion of calomel, so far as its 

 solution in artificial gastric juice is concerned, is brought un- 

 der the same conditions as that of the albuminoids. 



These observations are of considerable importance, as illus- 

 trating the method by which calomel enters the circulation, 

 so as to exercise the various therapeutical effects which it ex- 

 hibits. 1 A, March 22, 1872, 138. 



MICEOCOCCI IN MEASLES AND SCAELET FEVEE. 



Dr. Hallier, well known by his researches upon the fungi 

 as supposed agents or concomitants of disease, states in a re- 

 cent paper tha't measles and scarlet fever are both occasioned 



