ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICEOSCOPY, ETC. 625 



importance of routine examination of both bile and faeces becomes 

 apparent. Five cases that were known to have been carriers before 

 death were examined after death, and only in the one with the shortest 

 period between detection and death (thirty-seven days) was the vibrio 

 found. In that case the vibrio was isolated from the bile only. Thirty 

 strains of non-agglutinable vibrios, isolated from the fteces and bile of 

 cholera cases, cholera contacts and others, were studied. When first 

 isolated these were non-ag^luiinable by liigh-titre cholera-immune serum. 

 By growth on bile, eight of these strains acquired agglutinability. Five 

 of these eight strains retained this property, and the other three lost it 

 after cultivation for a period of two months. In six cases that were 

 clinically and anatomically cholera, the cholera vibrio was not isolated 

 from either the faeces or the bile. Such cases occur in a large series of 

 cholera cases. 



Mode of Invasion by the Meningococcus.* — C. Worster-Drought and 

 A. M. Kennedy have investigated the above question and have arrived 

 at the conclusion that the portal of entry of the meningococcus is via 

 the blood stream. In the ordinary type of case the coccus is carried to 

 the meninges by the blood within a few hours, without definitely infect- 

 ing the blood itself. In some cases, however, blood infection occurs — • 

 e.g. in fulminating cases — prior to the envolvment of the meninges ; 

 the septicaemia then frequently overshadows the meningitis. In rare 

 cases the organism may remain infecting the blood alone for a consider- 

 able time before finally reaching the meninges, or the patient may die 

 of such septicemia before meningitis can occur. In other instances the 

 meningococcus infecting the blood may also invade structures other than 

 the meninges — e.g. the cardiac valves. Catarrhal conditions predjspose 

 to meningococcal infection, but the meningococcus does not necessarily 

 produce naso-pharyngeral catharrh. 



Bacteriolog-ical Researches on Etiology of Sprue.f — H. Dold has 

 made a comparative examination of normal stools and of those obtained 

 from patients suffering from sprue. Yeasts were detected in 7 • 5 p.c. of 

 the former and in 92 '1 p.c. of the latter, while they were present to the 

 extent of 16 p.c in cases of diarrhoea not associated with sprue. Either 

 blastomycetes or oidia were present in the sprue stools, and were found 

 to give acid and gas on glucose, lactose, maltose and mannite, which 

 thus explain the acid reaction and gaseous character of sprue stools. 

 Mice fed with an emulsion of-^ these organisms mixed with bread or rice 

 succumbed to a diarrhoea which presented the characters of sprue infec- 

 tion. The same experiment caused a transient diarrhoea in dogs. The 

 results of serum agglutinations and complement fixation experiments 

 were negative. 



■"&"• 



Carbohydrate Fermentation of Bacillus pestis.J— H. W. Wade has 

 carried out a series of carbohydrate experiments of various strains of 

 plague collected from different sources. Comparison of the different. 



* Lancet, cxciii. (1917) pp. 711-4. 



t Med. Record, xci. (1917) pp. 191-3. 



X Philippine Journ. Sci., xi. (1917) pp. 159-82. 



