108 



SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



Fig. 22. 



the original should be consulted. The author has, from an experience 

 of six years, found that essential as well as potential anaerobes form 

 colonies in these media within 24 hours at 38°. 



Porous Culture Vessels. * — A. Rosam calls attention to the value 

 of a utensil, used for keeping butter cool in hot weather, for cultivating 

 micro-organisms which require moisture and darkness. In shape it is 

 somewhat like a dish-cover, and is made of porous earthenware. It is 

 constructed to hold water between its inner and outer surfaces, and is filled 



or emptied from the top. As shown in the 

 illustration (fig. 22) it is placed on a dish 

 and is of sufficient size to accommodate 

 several Petri's capsules. 



Collecting Fossil Flora .f — C Reid and 

 Eleanor M. Reid obtained specimens from 

 the brickearth of Tegelen-sur-Meuse bv 

 following three or four seams to a place 

 where each was overlaid by barren clay. 

 Samples from the seam were then cut out 

 and placed at once in clean boxes for re- 

 moval. Afterwards the clay was taken out 

 and allowed to dry thoroughly. When dry, 

 about half a pound of clay was placed in a 

 sieve and water poured over it. All the floating particles were collected 

 with a earners-hair brush and placed aside. The washing was continued 

 until the vegetable material was free from mud. The muddy filtrate 

 was next passed through four sieves with increasingly finer meshes, the 

 residues from each being separately collected and placed in jars with 

 clean water. The residues were then examined in water with suitable 

 lenses, and everything determinable picked out. The selected seeds 

 were then stored in suitable bottles. 



Enrichment Method for Detecting Bacillus typhosus.} — E. Klein 

 has devised an enrichment method for detecting Bacillus typhosus in 

 polluted material. He used beef broth mixed with bile salt and 

 malachite-green adjusted in the following maimer : To 400 c.cm. of 

 faintly alkaline beef broth were added 5 c.cm. of 5 p.c. aqueous solution 

 of sodium taurocholate and then malachite-green (Xo. 120 Hochst) in the 

 proportion of 1 : 1500. The medium was decanted into tubes (10 c.cm. 

 each), and then sterilised. Tubes examined 24 hours after inoculation 

 with the suspected fluid showed that B. typhosus had grown freely, i.e. 

 had become enriched, while the progress of B. coli had been inhibited. 

 Subcultures were made on Drigalski plates. 



The use of malachite-green for inhibiting the growth of B. coli was 

 discovered by Loeffler.§ 



Simplified Method for Detecting the Presence of Bacillus 

 typhosus. ||— H. Dunschmann recommends a medium of the following 



* Centralbl. Bakt., 2te Abt., xx. (1907) p. 154 (1 fig.), 

 t Verb. k. Akad. Wetenscb. Amsterdam, xiii. (1907) pp. 1-26 (3 pis.). 

 % Lancet, 1907, ii., pp. 1519-21. § See tbis Journal, 1906, p. 612. 



II C.R. Soc. Biol. Paris, lxiii. (1907) pp. 483-5. 



