ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 317 



(6) Miscellaneous. 



Electro-chemical Disinfection.* — F. C. Lewis recommends for use 

 in bacteriological laboratories, in place of the familiar jar of lysol for the 

 disinfection of slides and cultures, a jar containing sodium chloride, in 

 which, by means of an electrical current, sodium hypochlorite, a power- 

 ful disinfecting agent, is produced. He uses a glass museum jar three- 

 quarters full of a 10-20 p.c. solution of common salt. The current is 

 obtained from the ordinary lighting circuit, a bench-lamp providing the 

 necessary resistance. One of the cords of the lamp is cut, the severed 

 copper wires are bared and fixed to carbon plates. The exposed wire is 

 thickly coated with paraffin or sealing-wax. The carbon electrodes are 

 placed in the salt bath. The bath soon acquires high bactericidal powers : 

 tests with anthrax spores and other organisms prove this. These powers 

 are retained for several days after the passage of the current is discon- 

 tinued. As the bactericidal power is readily regenerated, the method is 

 economical. 



Bacteriological Examination of Food and Water.j — The Syndics 

 of the Cambridge University Press are publishing a series of volumes 

 dealing with subjects connected with Public Health, and one of these, 

 " The Bacteriological Examination of Food and Water," is written by 

 W. G. Savage, who has had great experience in the subjects dealt with 

 in the present volume. The work fills up a considerable gap, for most 

 text-books which deal with the bacteriology of food and water do so in 

 a somewhat perfunctory manner. After chapters on general considera- 

 tions and methods for the isolation and identification of indicator 

 organisms such as B. coli, B. mteritzdis, sporogenes, streptococci, etc., 

 the special subjects of water, soil and sewage, shellfish, milk and its 

 products, meat and air, are dealt with in a luminous and practical 

 manner. There is also a useful chapter on the determination of anti- 

 septic and germicidal power, the volume concluding with an appendix 

 in which are described the different media and their composition 

 required for the examinations mentioned in the work. The methods 

 given are those which the author has found from experience to be of 

 practical value, and the utility of which he has personally proved. 



* Journ. of Hygiene, xiv. (1914) pp. 48-51. 



t Cambridge University Press, 1914, 173 pp. (16 figs.). 



