2486 Journal of Applied Microscopy 



way. The relative number of bacteria may be easily determined in this way, 

 but evidently no actual quantitative determinations are possible. h. w. c. 



Baerraann. Ueber die Zuchtung von Gon- The culture of Gonococcus has pre- 



okokken auf Thalmanschen zw. gewon- gented great difficulties and a success- 

 lichen Fleischwasserargar und Glycerine ° 



agar-Nahrboden. Zeit.f. Hyg. XLIII, p. 529, ful method of growing it is a great 



'903- desideratum for pathologists. Thal- 



mann has prepared a culture medium which he regards as especially useful. It 

 consists of the common bouillon agar with slight modifications. The ground 

 beef is dissolved for fifteen minutes in boiling water and a small sample is neu- 

 tralized, with phenolthaline as an indicator, until there is a permanent red color 

 produced. From the amount of NaOH necessary for this neutralization is 

 calculated the amount needed to similarly neutralize the whole amount, and 

 then TO per cent, of this amount is added to the whole medium. Baermann 

 tests this medium and compares it with ordinary media with the following results : 

 He finds that no cultures can be obtained with any media unless there is a rich 

 sowing of pus, but with such sowing cultures can be obtained upon common agar 

 as well as glycerine agar. The Thalman's medium is somewhat inferior to 

 common flesh agar. There are many unaccountable differences in the results 

 obtained with the same medium in his different tests. h. w. c. 



Besancon. F., Griffon, V. and Philibert. Comp- The writers of this article advance the 

 tes Rendus de la Societe de Biologie. following method of determining the 



Number i, January, IQ03. r i.u u -n r t^ u ■ ..u 



J' ^ ^ presence of the bacillus of Koch in the 



blood : 



"Place five cubic centimeters of blood in a mortar (both clot and serum). 

 Add five cubic centimeters of distilled water, and five drops of sodium carbon- 

 ate solution. Triturate the clot until it dissolves in the liquid. To this mass add 

 twenty cubic centimeters of water and boil in an evaporating dish for ten 

 minutes. 



"Pour the liquid into two tubes of a centrifuge of rapid rotation, and turn 

 rapidly for about ten minutes. The deposit obtained should then be placed 

 upon foil and treated according to Ziehl's method." 



In this way, these writers have been able to identify the bacillus of Koch by 

 a microscopical examination of the blood of animals inoculated with tuberculo- 

 sis for experimental purposes (two rabbits and one guinea pig having been 

 inoculated hypodermically the day before), and in human blood infected with 

 tuberculosis (one case of pulmonary tuberculosis and one of plasmic pleurisy). 



In a second communication made to the same society (Number 5, February 

 1903, pages 203 to 204) the same investigators admonish against a "possibility 

 of error in the diagnosis of the tubercle bacillus based upon the microscopical 

 examination of blood clots." They state that in case the blood or the suspected 

 serum has not been taken with the greatest aseptic precautions, no one has a 

 right to consider as a bacillus of Koch every bacillus retaining the stain after 

 the action of Ziehl's solution and the decoloration by a twenty- five per cent, 

 solution of sulphuric acid. A. Girauld. 



