ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 761 



Schizophyta. 

 Schizomycetes. 



New Hemophilic Bacterium.* — U. Paranhos has isolated from 

 the cerebrospinal fluid of a boy with symptoms of meningitis an organ- 

 ism that only grew on blood-agar ; it appeared on this medium, after 

 48 hours' incubation, in small round colonies, without any discolouring 

 of the medium ; the most favourable temperature was :57° C, and no 

 growth occurred under 25° or over 4o°C. The colonies were composed 

 of small non-motile bacilli, twice as long as their breadth, either straight 

 or slightly curved, and with a small clear interspace in the middle ; the 

 bacilli have neither capsule nor flagella, and do not form spores ; they 

 stain with ordinary anilin dyes and by Gram's method, and are not acid- 

 fast : pathogenicity was shown in a pigeon, but dogs, rabbits, and guinea- 

 pigs gave negative results. 



Nitrogen-fixing Bacteria and Non-leguminous Plants.f — W. B. 

 Bottomley finds that mixed cultures of Pseudomonas and Azotobacter 

 incubated in flasks containing a medium composed of maltose, potassium 

 phosphate, sodium chloride, calcium carbonate, ferrous sulphate, agar 

 and distilled water, at 24° C. for 15 days (care being taken to renew the 

 aii- in the flask at intervals), have combined with more free nitrogen than 

 similarly treated cultures of Pseudomonas alone. 



The author planted oat seeds in four pots of sand, with sufficient 

 phosphate, potash, and lime ; when the plants were 1 in. high, two pots 

 were watered with mixed cultures of Pseudomonas and Azotobacter ; the 

 plants were kept watered with distilled water and allowed to grow until 

 the untreated plants drooped ; after drying it was found that the treated 

 plants weighed 76 p.c. more than the untreated. 



Ratin bacillus and Bacillus enteriditis Gaertner. J — F. Lebram 

 has studied the ratiu bacillus, and finds that it bears a strong similarity 

 both in pathogenic and cultural characters to*i?. enteriditis Gaertner. 

 On litmus-agar plates they both form small blue colonies ; they ferment 

 glucose broth with the production of gas ; both redden Htmus milk, 

 B. enteriditis more strongly at first, and becoming blue after 5 or 6 days, 

 whereas the red formed by the ratin bacillus remains constant for several 

 weeks. Both organisms ferment neutral-red agar with the production of 

 fluorescence ; neither liquefy gelatin ; with both, broth cultures are 

 uniformly clouded, but with Gaertner bacillus the medium clears in 

 2 to 3 days with the formation of a deposit ; with the ratin bacillus the 

 medium forms a pellicle and clears only after 7 days ; neither organism 

 coagulates milk, but the medium becomes yellow 7 and translucent after 

 2 to 3 weeks ; with Gaertner serum the ratin bacillus gives a positive 

 agglutination in dilutions of 1 in 5000 : with ratin serum the Gaertner 

 bacillus gives a positive agglutination in dibitions of 1 in 2000. 



Avian tuberculin and Pseudo-tuberculous Enteritis of Cattle. § 

 O. Bang found in cases of pseudo-tuberculous enteritis of cattle a bacillus 

 which is acid-fast and resembles the tubercle bacillus, and the lesions 



* Centralbl. Bakt., lte Abt. Orig., 1. (1909) p. 607. 

 t Proc. Rov. Soc, lxxxi. (1909) p. 287. 

 X Centralbl. Bakt. lte Abt. Orig., 1. (1909) p. 315. 

 § Op. cit., li. (1909) p. 450. 



