314 RECORD OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



bacterine pairs or single individuals in active locomotion, sometimes 

 stationary in zooglea groups, and occasionally in chains of four or 

 more. The ghost cells recently described at the meeting of the 

 British Medical Association in Cork, are also to be demonstrated by 

 this method in blood a month sealed. 



Influence of Aromatic Decomposition-Products on certain 

 Fungi.* — Dr. Wernich has, with the co-operation of Professor Salkow- 

 ski, set before himself the problem of discovering whether the aro- 

 matic products found during the putrefaction of albuminous substances 

 have any destructive effects on Bacteria^ and whether these substances 

 have an influence projjortionate to their amount ; the investigations 

 extended over the influences of indol, phenol, phenyl-propionic acid, 

 and other bodies. After a careful account of his various experiments, 

 the author draws attention to the fact that they give no little support 

 to the view that disease-producing fuflgi are, after a time, destroyed 

 by the poisons to which they themselves give rise during their growth 

 and multiplication ; this of course explains the cyclical course of 

 various infectious diseases ; while it is clear that it is only by careful 

 observations and exjieriments of this kind that pathological riddles 

 will ever be unravelled. 



Ferment of Nitrification. I — The term nitrification is used by 

 MM. Schloesing and Muntz for the oxidation of nitrogenous organic 

 substances, and the consequent production of nitrates, which goes on 

 to a large extent in the soil. This process they regard as one analogous 

 to fermentation. On examining with a suflficiently high power the 

 soil containing these substances, the organic debris is seen to be 

 accompanied by an immense variety of minute organisms. Pasteur 

 has given the name " shining corpuscles " (^corpuscules hrillants) to the 

 excessively minute particles which he regards as the germs of 

 Bacteria ; and it is these bodies which Schloesing and Muntz believe 

 to be the agents in the oxidation of nitrogenous substances, or the 

 nitric ferment. It multiplies slowly in suitable liquids by budding. 

 It is killed in a few minutes by a temperature of 100° C, and one of 

 90° arrests its action. It is very widely distributed, it being very rare 

 to find a particle of soil from which it is entirely absent. 



Alopecia areata.^ — Whether this disease, one manifestation of 

 which is the appearance of bare spots on the hair and beard, is the 

 result of the attacks of a parasitic fungus or not, has long been a 

 subject of doubt among medical men. Dr. H. Eicbhorst has carefully 

 examined a case, and made microscoj^ical preparations which clearly 

 show the presence of fungus-spores at the part affected ; though to 

 what species or even groiip they belong he was unable to determine. 



Microthelia and Didymosph8eria.§ — Dr. Eehm identifies these 

 two genera, of which the former has been described by Korber as a 

 genus of lichens, the latter by Fuckel as a genus of fungi, and 



* ' Arcliiv. path. Anat.' (Virchow), Ixxviii. (1879) p. 51. 



t ' Comptes Kendus,' Ixxxix. (1879) p. 891. 



X ' Arch. path. Anat. u. Physiol.' (Virchow), Ixxviii. (1879) p. 197. 



§ 'Hedwigia,' xviii. (1879) p. 161. 



