100 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



rabbits, dogs and cats. Liquefaction of gelatin did not occur, and 

 growth was strictly aerobic. On horse serum there was no growth, and 

 the author was unable to infect the horse. The organism was not 

 identical with Streptothrix Eppinger. 



Jaundice of the Beet: a Bacterial Disease.* — G. Delacroix has 

 investigated this disease of the beet, a disease characterised by irregular 

 spots on the leaves. In these spots, as well as in the roots, petioles 

 and seed-vessels, he found numerous motile bacilli ; and his experiments 

 indicate that these bacilli are the cause of the disease, which is probably 

 propagated by means of the seed-vessels. The micro-organism can be 

 cultivated on various media, but not on gelatin, and the author pro- 

 poses to call it Bad. calificans. It stains with ordinary dyes, but not 

 with Gram. It does not produce spores. Cultivated to the twelfth 

 generation it loses its virulence. In the way of treatment, the author 

 recommends rotation of crop at least triennially, the avoidance of 

 carrying to waste heaps the diseased leaves, and the burying of them 

 directly ; the sowing only of four-years-old seeds, and the absolute 

 exclusion of seed-vessels from the neighbourhood of fields where beet 

 is cultivated. 



Spirillosis of Fowls. f — E. Marchoux and A. Salimbeni have investi- 

 gated a disease of fowls common in Rio de Janeiro. The symptoms 

 are diarrhoea, pyrexia, malaise, and death usually in a few days. In 

 the blood they found a spirillum, and this blood produced the disease 

 in other fowls. The authors conclude that the disease is caused by this 

 spirillum, and is transmissible by inoculation of infective blood, and 

 also by way of the digestive tract when blood charged with spirilla or 

 the dejecta of infected fowls is ingested. Outside the organism the 

 spirilla lose all virulence in about 48 hours. Protection can be obtained 

 by the injection of blood or virulent serum, which has been kept 

 48 to 96 hours, or heated to 55° C. for five to ten minutes, and also by 

 serum freshly obtained from an infected fowl and passed through a 

 Berkefeld filter. Serum of animals which have recovered has pre- 

 ventive properties. In vitro the same serum has marked agglutinating 

 power. 



* Comptes Rendus, exxxvii. (1903) pp. 871-2. 

 t Ann. Inst. Pasteur, xvii. (J 903) pp. 567-80. 



* I < g» I m 



