ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 487 



which latter is not liquefied, giving acid and gas on glucose, dulcite and 

 mannite broths, not affecting lactose or cane-sugar broths, rendering 

 litmus milk at first acid and later alkaline, but producing no clotting. 

 He also obtained 10 cultures of the paratyphoid A type, which agreed 

 culturally with those of the other group, excepting that the litmus milk 

 remained acid without clotting, and indol was produced at the end of 

 five days. The scrapings from the intestines yielded a larger number 

 of positive results than the fasces, owing to the fact that the bacilli are 

 parasitic on the mucous surface of the intestine. As regards patho- 

 genicity, the cultures of the B. enteriditis type were uniformly fatal in a 

 few hours, whereas those of the paratyphoid A group were much less 

 virulent, 25 p.c. of the inoculated guinea-pigs recovering. The presence 

 of a toxin in the enteriditis cultures was demonstrated by injecting 

 filtered broth cultures intraperitoneally, the animals dying within 

 24 hours. 



He repeated his experiments, but made direct cultivations from the 

 scrapings of the intestines without previously passing them through 

 guinea-pigs ; in this series out of 38 colonies 25 were of the para- 

 typhoid A group and none of the B. enteriditis type, showing that these 

 latter are really much less common in the normal intestine of animals 

 than those of the other type, and that their apparently greater frequency 

 in the first series of experiments was due to their greater virulence. 



He gives details of his agglutination experiments, and concludes 

 that in this respect the organisms fall into three groups, namely, (1) 

 B. enteriditis Aertryche, or hog cholera type, (2) B. enteriditis, psitta- 

 cosis type, (3) B. paratyphoid A, unknown type, not agreeing with either 

 the bacillus of Schott Muller or that of Brion and Kayser. 



New Microbe of Pulmonary Phthisis.* — v. Schreen finds that tuber- 

 culosis and phthisis are two different processes resulting from two 

 organisms that differ in structural and biological characters. The 

 microbe of phthisis is a branched sporulating thread, which under 

 185 magnifications appears about 1 mm. thick. At first the soft threads 

 penetrate the alveolar epithelial cells, then throwing out lateral buds 

 they form a fine network ; the cell protoplasm is drawn up by the or- 

 ganism, and the atrophic nucleus, deprived of its chromatin, appears 

 suspended in the centre of the transparent mesh. Neighbouring mycelia 

 unite to form a tangled mass. The threads are hollow and without 

 septa ; on the end branches there appear small capsules, which at first 

 are homogeneous, but later have a cavity with granular contents, which 

 in the mature state are transformed into bundles of branched threads, 

 which, leaving the capsule, attack the epithelial cells of the nearest 

 alveolus. The author considers that this microbe does not form true 

 spores, and that it is not to be classed with the Hyphomycetes. He did 

 not obtain it in pure culture, and he gives no details of his methods 

 of staining. 



Tuberculosis and Pseudo-tuberculosis.f — F. Sanfelice has isolated 

 from the air a number of cultures of Streptotriche*, and has examined 



* Centralbl. Bakt.. l tu Abt. Ref., xxxvi. (11)05) p. 561. 

 t Tom. cit. p. 572. 



