ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 607 



serum, become extremely sensitive to intra-cerebral injection of normal 

 horse-serum, if this last is given within 10-12 days after the first 

 injection. This hypersensitiveness or anaphylaxia results in very severe 

 symptoms that often terminate fatally. If the horse-serum is injected 

 into the brain or peritoneum after the interval of 12 days, it is innocuous, 

 and may act as a vaccine, the state of anti-anaphylaxia being produced, 

 so that now the animal no longer succumbs to the intracerebral injection 

 of serum. Tiie brain, spleen, liver, and serum of a guinea-pig rendered 

 anti-anaphylactic have no specific properties. 



The anti-anaphylactic vaccination, whether obtained by intra- 

 peritoneal or by cerebral injection, belongs very probably to the same 

 order of phenomena as the de-intoxication in vitro of the tetanic brain 

 by anti-tetanic serum ; the vaccination having the effect of restoring^ 

 the guinea-pig to its original condition. The anti-anaphylactic immunity 

 will then be only the natural immunity that all normal guinea-pigs- 

 possess against the intra-cerebral injection of serum. 



Bacillus proteus ruber.* — L. Fortineau and Soubrane have studied 

 B. proteus ruber, isolated from the water of the Loire. The microbe 

 presents a curious polymorphism which is dependent on the age of the 

 culture, on the medium, and on the temperature at which it grows. On 

 agar the growth is red ; broth is clouded, there is a superficial border, 

 and a red deposit ; the growth on serum is pink ; milk is slowly co- 

 agulated ; gelatin very slowly liquefied ; there is abundant growth on 

 potato. In young cultures, on agar and in broth, at room temperature,, 

 the bacilli are 2-4 /x long, often joined as diplobacilli, and staining by 

 Gram's method ; after 20 days they have elongated into filaments or 

 streptobacilli associated with clubbed forms, a condition that persists for 

 some months. On serum, clubbed forms appear within four days, and 

 are often very large and curved rods ; short bacillary chains, and long 

 sinuous threads and forms resembling spermatozoa, are noted. 



Grown in an incubator, these variations in form appear at an earlier 

 date. The organism is not pathogenic for laboratory animals. 



Toxgemia produced by Dead Bacillus mallei.* — J. Cantacuzene and 

 P. Riegler find that dead glanders bacilli are toxic, and produce, when 

 inoculated either intra-peritoneally or by the intestinal tract, a disease 

 that is more or less rapidly fatal, with symptoms of lowered tempera- 

 ture, emaciation, and degeneration of the renal epithelium and heart- 

 muscle fibre ; the polymorphonuclear leucocytes, often engulfing the 

 bacilli, undergo an acute necrosis ; in the protoplasm of the more resistant 

 leucocytes there is a production of an amorphous substance that stains 

 bright green by thionine ; the blood shows an increase in the number of 

 the lymphocytes. The destruction of the dead bacilli is very rapid ; they 

 soon lose the power of fixing basic aniline dyes ; they persist for a short 

 time as eosinophil granules, but after 1-2 hours become completely 

 invisible. 



The authors describe and give illustrations of the manner in which 

 the dead bacilli pass through the intestinal wall. 



* C.R. Soc. Biol, de Paris, Ixii. (1907) p. 1214. 



* Ann. Inst. Pasteur, xsi. (1907) p. 194. 



