€96 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



Bacillus Coli in Dysentery.* — M. Lesage draws attention to the 

 rarity of the B. coli in the faeces during the early stage of dysentery, 

 a fact first noted by Le Dantec. He distinguishes three stages in 

 typical dysentery, and states that out of 26 cases examined in the first 

 stage he was only able to detect typical B. coli in 6, and from 63 cases 

 in the second stage he isolated the organism 18 times. On the other 

 hand, from every case in the third stage he obtained cultivations of 

 the colon bacillus. The organisms isolated from cases in the first two 

 stages were usually members of the paracoli group, and characterised 

 by their inability to coagulate milk, and absence of odour from the 

 cultures. He further states that by cultivating the paracolon bacillus 

 upon potato through a number of generations, — tho number of sub- 

 cultures varying with the variety of potato, — the power of coagulating 

 milk was regained, and the peculiar odour of the B. coli again made 

 its appearance in the cultures. 



Cereal Products and Bacteria. * — E. Klein and A. C. Houston, who 

 showed in a previous report that some grains, also cereal products such 

 as wheat-flour, contained not only saprophytic bacteria but also members 

 of the coli group and spores of the B. euteritidis sporogenes, have con- 

 tinued their researches in this direction by cultivating various patho- 

 genic microbes (B. typhosus, B. diphtherise, B. pyocyaneus, and the 

 Staphylococcus aureus) in a medium composed of wheat-flour, rice-flour, 

 and oatmeal respectively, to which sterilised water had been added in 

 the proportion of 9 ccm. to one gram of flour. As the result of numerous 

 experiments the authors state that the B. typhosus could be recovered 

 as late as 25 davs, and the B. pyocyaneus 29 days, after sowing in rice- 

 flour and water. When planted, in wheat-flour and water the respective 

 figures were 5 days and 14 days. The Staphylococcus aureus was re- 

 covered as late as the 24th day from oatmeal and water. The B. diph- 

 therise appears to die out rapidly in these media, and is not recovered 

 later than the third day, whilst the V. cholerse did not appear to survive 

 beyond the sixth day. 



Antagonism of the Soil to the Bacillus typhosus. }— S. Martin has 

 investigated the factors concerned in the destruction of the B. typhosus 

 when that organism is introduced into the soil. The method he adopted 

 was to isolate a common non-putrefactive bacillus from the soil, — B. 

 ramificans,— and to inoculate it simultaneously with a B. typhosus re- 

 cently isolated from a human source, into sterilised soil; incubate 

 portions at 22° C. and at 37° C, and examine at frequent intervals to 

 ascertain the result of the mixed infection. Control experiments were 

 made in which diluted peptone broth was inoculated with these two 

 organisms and similarly incubated. In this series of experiments it 

 was found that in the soil the B. typhosus had undergone considerable 

 diminution in 26 days, and could no longer be recovered after about 

 33 days : in the liquid medium, diminution of the B. typhosus was noted 

 in 45 days, and its extinction in 72 days. This latter observation was 

 repeated in a slightly different manner. The peptone broth was first 

 inoculated with the B. typhosus and was incubated at 37° C. for several 



* Comptes Rendus, exxxv. (1902) pp. 403-5. 



t Local Gov. Board Reps., 1900-1901 (1902) pp. 310-27. 



j Tom. cit., pp. 487-511. 



