126 



HARD WICKE' S SCIENCE- G OSSIP. 



may be allowed to worship Him, who in the abun- 

 dance of His creation was great enough, after making 

 a thousand kinds of plants, to make one more in 

 which all the rest should be comprised ; and after a 

 thousand kinds of animals, a being which comprises 

 them all — Man." — Eckermann. Conversations with 



Goethe. 



J. W. Williams. 



THE SCORPIONS OF MEXICO. 



ONE of the greatest, if not the greatest pests 

 in Mexico are the land scorpions (genus 

 of Arachnida), which, at certain seasons of the 

 year, become as numerous in the houses as flies. 

 They swarm in all parts, within the cracks of the 

 wall, between breaks of the tiles of the floor, inside 

 your garments, darting about with inconceivable 

 rapidity, waving their sting, which is located at the 

 end of the tail, in all directions, either for attack or 

 defence. Turn up a rug or table cloth and you 

 disturb a flourishing colony, shake your shoes in the 

 morning and out they dart. Their colour is generally 

 mahogany-hued and their length about two inches, 

 but in some instances they have been seen of more 

 than double that length. Their sting is seldom fatal, 

 but much dreaded by the inhabitants, as it is more or 

 less severe, according to the condition of the system. 

 Victims have been known to remain for days in 

 convulsions, with stomach swelled as in dropsy ; 

 while others do not suffer much more than from a 

 wasp or bee sting. Their food consists of beetles and 

 other insects, and also the eggs of spiders. The 

 anterior pair of feet or palpi are modified into pincers 

 or claws like those of a lobster, by which it seizes its 

 prey, piercing this with their stings again and again 

 before beginning the meal. The young are produced 

 in great numbers at very frequent intervals, the 

 mother displaying far more regard for her offspring 

 than their vicious natures seem to justify. During 

 their infancy she carries them about, clinging in great 

 numben; to her back, limbs and tail, never leaving 

 her retreat for a moment, unless overburdened 

 by their weight her hold relaxes from the wall and 

 down falls the whole happy family. When they are 

 bad enough, they generally reward the maternal 

 devotion by destroying the mother, tearing her 

 piecemeal with the greatest ferocity. Geologically 

 the class Arachnida is of great antiquity, as they are 

 found in a fossil state in the coal measures in various 

 parts of the world. The scorpions are the largest 

 and most formidable members of the class Arachnida, 

 and they are, for the most part, confined to the 

 warmer regions of the earth. The genus (Androc- 

 tonus) to which the largest European form be- 

 longs, is chiefly represented in Africa, although they 

 occur in Western Asia as well as in Europe. Its 

 name, which signifies "man killer," indicates the 



dread with which they are regarded in Africa, where 



their sting is productive of painful consequences, but 



whether it is ever fatal remains in doubt. 



Dipton Burn. 

 March, 1S87. 



KOCH'S COMMA BACILLI. 



HEREWITH an extract from the "Twenty- 

 Second Annual Report of the Sanitary Com- 

 missioner to the Government of India " (p. 192, 

 Sec. x.) : — ■ 



"The most interesting results obtained in the 

 Biological Laboratory (of Calcutta) during the course 

 of last year, so far as the question of cholera is 

 concerned, were those in a series of experiments 

 on the subcutaneous inoculation of the so-called 

 'Choleraic Comma Bacilli,' into the bodies of 

 guinea-pigs. They clearly showed that such inocu- 

 lations are not unattended by serious risks, as in a 

 considerable proportion of the cases they were 

 followed by fatal results, attended with such uniform 

 and characteristic symptoms as could leave no 

 reasonable doubt that a specific pathogenic influence 

 had been at work. An excessive multiplication of 

 the bacilli had occurred, especially along the course 

 of the lymphatic channels. They were present in 

 vast numbers in the subcutaneous lymphatic spaces 

 extending from the site of injection, and which were 

 full of a sanguineo-serous effusion diffused over 

 varying, but always considerable areas. The bacilli 

 were not, however, confined to the subcutaneous 

 lymphatic system, but were present in multitudes in 

 the peculiar adhesive secretion lining the peritoneal 

 cavity. None could be recognised in specimens of 

 blood, but the result of cultivations appeared to 

 show that they were present in it in limited numbers, 

 as pure crops of commas were invariably developed. 

 One very conspicuous and important feature in all 

 the cases was the presence of large numbers of the 

 bacilli within the intestinal canal. In some cases 

 the numbers here were excessive. In all, their 

 presence was accompanied by softening and a 

 tendency to desquamation of the epithelium, and in 

 one case this had advanced so far as to result in 

 absolute denudation of the entire mucous membrane 

 throughout the whole course of the canal. Culti- 

 vations clearly showed that the bacilli were speci- 

 fically identical with the true choleraic commas, and 

 differed from the curved bacilli normal to the 

 intestinal tract in guinea pigs. Although careful 

 search was made, no bacilli could be detected in the 

 substance of the walls of the canal, and certain 

 phenomena appeared to indicate that their transfer 

 from the peritoneal cavity to the interior of the gut 

 was effected, not by general diffusion, but by the 

 agency of ' carrier corpuscles.' The phenomena 

 present in these cases do not warrant the definite 



