ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 505 



stains well with the ordinary anilin dyes, but is decolorised by Gram's 

 method. Cultivations were obtained under anaerobic conditions at 

 37° C. in saccharated gelose and in bouillon. Pure cultures inoculated 

 on guinea-pigs produced suppuration: 



New Diplococcus of Meningitis.* — Prof. L. Vincenzi describes a 

 diplococcus which was isolated from a ineuingitic exudation, the result 

 of otitis. The cocci were free in the exudate and also in the leucocytes. 

 They are oval or lancet-shaped, possess a well-marked capsule, and 

 resemble morphologically Fraenkel's diplococcus. The biological 

 characters of the two organisms are however quite different. The 

 coccus is an essential aerobe, is easily stained, and grows well on the 

 usual media even at room temperature. It does not liquefy gelatin. 

 The diplococcus is pathogenic to mice and rabbits, aud, injected 

 beneath the dura mater, excites meningitis and causes death in 12—16 

 hours. 



Bacillus enteritidis sporogenes and its Relation to Typhoid 

 Fever. | — Dr. E. Klein reports the results of a further investigation of 

 B. enteritidis sporogenes, more especially as to its relations with the 

 diarrhoea associated with typhoid fever. From a large number of cases 

 he has found that though in the diarrhoea stages of typhoid fever the 

 number of spores of B. enteritidis is, as a rule, great and easily demon- 

 strable, in the non-diarrhcea condition, or in the convalescent stage of 

 the malady, their number so greatly and conspicuously diminishes as to 

 render it very difficult, if not practically impossible, to demonstrate them. 

 There would, therefore, appear to be some connection between the fluid 

 stool and the presence of large numbers of B. enteritidis ; the exact 

 conditions of this relationship appear difficult to determine, in view of 

 the fact that B. enteritidis occurs under other diarrhoea conditions. The 

 relationship becomes more obscure in view also of the fact that certain 

 microbes of ubiquitous distribution may, occasionally in some instances 

 and in others frequently, become pathogenic. 



Experiments with this microbe in reference to " protection " showed 

 that previous infection predisposed to a fatal result. No agglutinating 

 action with blood-serum from a patient or from an animal artificially 

 infected was observed. 



Infection by Symptomatic Anthrax (Rauschbrand). J — MM. E. 

 Leclainche and H. Vallee record a series of experiments made for the 

 purpose of ascertaining the part played by the bacterium of sympto- 

 matic anthrax and its toxin in the aetiology of the infection. They find 

 that the bacterium produces an active toxin which by itself alone is 

 capable of exciting severe symptoms and death. 



Spores alone, and freed from toxin, when introduced even in large 

 number into the tissues, are incapable of germinating and of exciting the 

 infection. The resistance of the organism is associated with phagocytic 

 action, an-.l any cause capable of preventing or hindering phagocytosis 

 favours or assures the infection. 



Microbe Pathogenic to Rat?.§— Having found that a coccobacillus 

 isolated from an epidemic among Mus arvicola was somewhat pathogenic 



* Centralbl. Bakt. u. Par., 1" Abt., xxvii. (1900) pp. 561-4 (1 pi.). 



t Rep. Med. Off. Loc. Gov. Board, 1898-0, pp. 312-43. 



% Ann. Inst. Pasteur, xiv. (1900) pp. 202-23. § Tom. c-it., pp. 193-201. 



