THE ALUMNI JOURNAL. 



47 



Thermo Dynamics treated with Elementary 

 Mathematics.—]. Pailseo. London : S. Low & 

 Co. 



THE MOST RECENT WORK. 



A Seidlitz Powder.— A. Guun made an exam- 

 ination of some powders and found the blue 

 powder to consist of magnesium sulphate and 

 sodium bicarbonate. The white powder con- 

 sisted of tartaric acid. Evidently there had 

 been a mistake or else it was a bold attempt to 

 cope with the cutting system and its cheap 

 prices. One wonders that the makers should 

 expect the unusual effect of trying to dissolve 

 the contents of the blue paper to pass unno- 

 ticed.— Pharm. Jour. Trans., 1894, 534. 



Ointment of Mercuric Nitrate. — C. H. La 

 Wall (Amer.Jour Pharm., 1894, 525). The fol- 

 lowing fats have beeu suggested as a substitute 

 for the lard oil : Neatsfoot oil, lard, butter, 

 peanut oil, almond oil, caster oil, palm oil, 

 bear's oil, ox marrow, beef suet, stearic acid, 

 petrolatum, and almost all of the other fats 

 from the animal and the vegetable kingdoms, 

 and even one from the mineral kingdom, ap- 

 pear to have been experimented with in the 

 vain hope of finding some fat or oil which would 

 make a good and durable ointment. 



Several writers have taken another course 

 and have tried to preserve the products obtain- 

 ed from former processes. One advises keep- 

 ing the ointment in a jar and covering it with a 

 layer of glycerin to prevent oxidation; others 

 have tried the addition of camphor ; still oth- 

 ers have given their attention to the mercurial 

 portion of the ointment, and suggest making 

 the nitrate from the oxide of mercury instead 

 of making it from the metal. Some have even 

 been skeptical as to the reliability of any pro- 

 cess, but those who have approximated the 

 truth more nearly are they who advise careful 

 manipulation, especially as regards temperature. 

 The author employs the official ingredients 

 and quantities and heats the lard oil to ioo° C, 

 removes heat, and adds the nitric acid without 

 stirring and reapplies heat when effervescence 

 ceases until all gas is expelled. It is best to 

 use a vessel of six times the capacity of the 

 quantity to be made to allow for the copious 

 effervescence which takes place. When the 

 foregoing mixture has cooled to 40 C, the 

 solution of mercuric nitrate is added and 

 the temperature is raised gradually to 6o° 

 C, and maintained until no further evolution 

 of gas is noticed. If it is then agitated until 

 cold, as usual, the resulting product will com- 



ply with the requirements of the Pharmaco- 

 poeia. 



Ointment made by the U. S. P. method, which 

 has become spongy, may be remedied by ele- 

 vating the temperature to 6o° C. and cooling 

 with agitation. 



Typical Bacilli.— E. Klein [Quart. Jour. 

 Micros. Set., 1894, 1—9 (1 pl)\ concludes from 

 observations on the bacilli ofanthrax diphtheria, 

 and tubercle, that these species are not such 

 typical bacilli as they are usually represented 

 to be. For though under many conditions their 

 morphological characters are those of typical 

 bacilli, yet under others they revert to or 

 assume forms indicating their relationship to 

 Saccharomyces or a still higher mycelia fungus. 

 In the case of anthrax, the typical bacilli may 

 be represented by oval and spherical bodies, 

 some of which may contain vacuoles, and under 

 conditions (early stages of growth on plates com- 

 posed of beef bouillon, gelatin 10 per cent., pep- 

 ton 1 per cent., salt 1 percent.), the colonies are 

 composed of large spindle-shaped, spherical or 

 oval elements in which vacuolation is frequent. 

 Similar appearances are to be observed in col- 

 onies of the thrush fungus. From this it is in- 

 ferred that while B. anthracis is a typical bacil- 

 lius as a pathogenic microbe, yet in its early 

 stages of growth on gelatin it may assume 

 characters having much resemblance to Sac- 

 charomyces mycoderma or Oidium and thus re- 

 turn temporarily to an atavistic stage in its evolu- 

 tionary history. With regard to B. diphtheric? 

 the author points out that the club-shaped ex- 

 pansions of one or both ends are not to be re- 

 garded as due to involution, for both under 

 natural and artificial conditions where there is 

 active growth these expansions will be found, 

 and have moreover a striking resemblance to 

 the ends of growing hyphse. Their existence, 

 therefore, is only to be explained by their repre- 

 senting a relationship to a mycelial fungus. In 

 the case of the tubercle bacilli, preparations not 

 unfrequently show threads or filaments com 

 posed of unequal elements, some of them being 

 conspicuous for knob-shaped expansions, similar 

 to those of diphtheria. Such appearances occur 

 not only in sputum but in artificial cultivations^ 

 e. g. glycerin agar after some weeks incubation 

 at 37 . All these preparations behave in the 

 same way as B. tuberculosis when treated with 

 appropriate staining reagents; and that they are 

 not involution forms is evident, as the unbranch- 

 ed nature of the filaments and the existence of 

 lateral bulgings prove that they are in an active 

 condition of growth. 



