and Laboratory Methods. 1551 



onstrate, if possible, the truth or falsity of Prof. Koch's position. A committee 

 has been appointed recently in England, consisting of the most prominent 

 experts among English scientists, to investigate the questions concerned. The 

 great importance of these conclusions rests upon the fact that the belief in the 

 possibility of transference of the disease from animals to man has been the 

 basis of widely adopted public laws and sanitary rules, connected with the care 

 of cattle and the distribution of milk in all civilized communities, and if 

 Prof. Koch's views should be accepted as correct it would result in almost a 

 revolution in conducting sanitary inspection. The extreme importance of the 

 subject makes it certain that in the next few years many contributions will be • 

 given on the question, and we may in a short time expect a satisfactory 

 demonstration or refutation of the two positions advanced by Prof. Koch. 



H. w. c. 



Nikolsky. Charbon chez des animaux nourris r^^^ question as tO the distribution of 

 avec leur ailments habituel, meles de spores ^ 



charbonneuses. Ann. d. 1. Inst. Past. 14: 794, the anthrax baciUus has, ever Since the 



'900- days of Pasteur, been subject to a con- 



siderable degree of uncertainty. The author endeavors to determine whether 

 the anthrax spores, mixed with ordinary food, are capable of giving rise to the 

 disease. His conclusion is positive. The spores, mixed with the ordinary food, 

 were not only able to resist the action of the ordinary intestinal bacteria, but 

 made their way through the intestinal walls, and in a short time produced typi- 

 cal cases of anthrax. This, of course, is a factor which explains in a measure 

 the appearance of anthrax in old pastures where the bodies of animals that have 

 suffered from this disease have been buried. h. w. c. 



Smith. The Nodule Organism of the Legum- The author has made a more careful 

 inosae. Proc. Linn. Sec. of New South . 1 r ^1 • ^.v . j 



Wales. P. 653, 1899. st^dy °^ ^^^ organism that produces 



the tubercle in legumes than has hith- 

 erto been made. Previous observers have dwelt almost wholly upon the action 

 of the nodule in producing the tubercles, without making a sufficiently careful 

 study of the organism itself. Smith studies and gives a thorough description of 

 the tubercle organism. His conclusions are, essentially, as follows : 1. The 

 nodule organism is a yeast, possessing a vacuole, and not a bacterium. 2. It 

 multiplies by budding, and this, together with a persistent mucilaginous capsule, 

 indicates its relations to yeasts, although the organism has a variety 

 of forms. 3. Vigorous motor forms are found and the motile 

 organ in each consists of a single terminal or tufted flagellum. 4. The 

 organism grows best in a slightly acid glucose medium. 5. It does not fix nitro- 

 gen in an artificial medium, at least, so far as the author's experiments show. 6. 

 It is always accompanied in the nodule by other bacteria, but whether they have 

 anything to do with the formation of the nodule, the author is not sure. 



H. W. C. 



The Exclusion and Elimination of Pathogenic An editorial article discusses the 

 Bacteria from Sewage. Brit. Med. Jour. hygienic value of the modern accepted 

 p. 902, 1901. method of the treatment of sewage as 



adopted chiefly in England. The bacterial treatment of sewage produces a very 



