ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 757 



cultures, and gives details of the clinical aspects and treatment of the 

 disease in man, and an account of the morbid appearances of different 

 organs. 



The author then discusses the channels of infection, showing that 

 direct contagion plays no part, though there is strong evidence in favour 

 of its transmission by sexual congress, and that transmission by 

 mosquitos acting as carriers is possible, though exceedingly rare. It 

 was shown that of 2000 goats (one-tenth of the goat population of Malta), 

 40 p.c. yielded positive agglutination reactions, and 10 p.c. secreted 

 milk that contained the Micrococcus melitensis ; and further, that all 

 evidence points to goats' milk as the source of infection, and that since 

 this fact has been recognised and the necessary preventive precautions 

 have been instituted, the disease has practically disappeared from the 

 naval and military services stationed at Malta. 



Lactic-acid Bacilli and Cancer of the Stomach.* — A. Rodella 

 finds that aerobic and anaerobic mouth bacteria pass into the stomach, 

 and that the duration of their stay there depends on the quantity and 

 quality of the acid and unorganised ferments present. In general, 

 inorganic acids hinder or prevent the fermentation of yeast, the growth 

 of sarcina and the development of the higher micro-organisms. Car- 

 cinoma of the stomach establishes a most favourable condition for the 

 production of lactic acid fermentation, viz. a lack of free acid, a stagna- 

 tion of the stomach contents, the ready fermentation of carbohydrates 

 by ptyalin, and the relation of the oxygen of the air to the ferment 

 action of the lactic acid bacilli. The albumen that separates from the 

 surface of the malignant growth acts in two ways on the development of 

 lactic acid bacilli. Firstly, the microbes are able to ferment the keton 

 group of the albumen and produce lactic acid ; and secondly, the 

 albumen acts as a reducing agent in a nutrient medium ; the conditions 

 are assisted by the immobility of the stomach wall. 



Opsonins and Antiphagins in Pneumococcic Infection.! — N. 

 Tschistowitsch and W. Jurewitsch find, on examining the opsonic 

 property of dog's blood in pneumococcic infection, that strongly virulent 

 diplococci cultivated after several passages through rabbits, on solidified 

 blood-serum, and possessing well-marked capsules, were not phago- 

 cytosedwhen emulsified in salt solution and mixed with dogs' leucocytes. 

 But if the same diplococci had been tboroughly washed with physio- 

 logical salt solution they were phagocytosed, although they had not lost 

 their capsules ; and further, if these washed diplococci were mixed with 

 the decentrifuged fluid from the original diplococcal emulsion, their 

 capacity for being phagocytosed was again lost. From these observa- 

 tions the authors conclude that the failure of phagocytosis of the 

 unwashed virulent diplococci is connected not with the amount of 

 opsonin present in the blood, but on the action of some specific sub- 

 stance, " antiphagin," in the diplococcal culture. This diplococcal 

 antiphagiu is specific for the special strain of diplococcus. If the 



* Centralbl. Bakt., lte Abt. Orig., xlvii. (1908) p. 445. 

 t Op. cit., lte Abt. Kef., xlii. (1908) p. 193. 



