928 RECORD OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



other bacteria by its size, and by its peculiar somewbat heavy move- 

 ment. 



In a communication to the French Academy,* Van Tieghera 

 disputes the accuracy of Prazmowski's observations as far as Bacillus 

 Amylohacter is concerned, and repeats his i)revious I'esults. The 

 correctness of his conclusion he considered to be proved by the 

 invariable disengagement of hydrogen. 



Experimental Researches on a Leptothrix.f— M, Feltz presented, 

 on the 9th of June, a " rectification " of his earlier communication,! 

 in which he details his correspondence on this subject with 

 M. Pasteur, who was of opinion that the so-called new form was the 

 Bacterium of anthrax-poisoning, and furnished him with a guinea-pig 

 suffering from the disease, and with another jjoisoned with his own 

 Lejjtothrix. The result of the examination of their blood was to con- 

 vince M. Feltz of the correctness of M. Pasteur's view. M. Pasteur 

 adds a short note, in which there is one point of especial importance 

 in these days — ■" Je me suis abstenu generalement de donner des 

 noms specifiques a ceux de ces organismes que je pouvais croire 

 nouveaux." 



Antidote to Bacteria-poisoning in Frogs.§ — Bactera^mia is, in 

 the frog, always accompanied by an alteration in the characters of the 

 blood-corpuscles, and this alteration has a proportional relation to the 

 gravity of the condition of the poisoned frog ; a small subcutaneous 

 dose of phenate of soda (e. g. about yg^ y milligramme for each gramme 

 of the frog's weight) is found to be an efficient antidote. 



Sugar-refining Gum, Leuconostoc mesenteroides.|| — It has long 

 been known to the manufacturers of beet-root sugar that a gelatinous 

 gummy substance, of a firm and elastic consistency, composed of white 

 lumps of moderate regularity intimately associated into a kind of 

 parenchyma, makes its appearance on the sacks in which the cut 

 beet-root is pressed, on the presses themselves, on the sieves through 

 which the juice passes, and less often in the boiled syrup. This 

 substance is known in France as gomme de sucrerie, in Germany as 

 Froschlaich (frog's spawn). The part of this substance soluble in 

 alcohol contains maunite, fatty acids, glycerophosphoric acid, and a 

 nitrogenous principle, betain or oxynevrin. The insoluble part, much 

 the most considerable, is almost exclusively comj)osed of a substance 

 with the composition CijHioOio, endowed with a rotatory power to the 

 right (ttj = 223°), three times that of cane-sugar, and greater than 

 that of dextrin or starch. It has been called by Scheibler dextrane. 

 At first supposed to be a non-organized protoplasmic product of the 

 cells of the beet, several observers subsequently determined its 

 organic nature ; and it was seen to have considerable afiinity with 

 Nostoc on the one hand, and with Cohn's genus of bacteria Ascococcus 

 on the other hand. 



Van Tieghem has recently subjected this organism to a searching 



* ' Comptes Eendus,' Ixxxix. (1S79) p. 5. t Ibid., Ixxxviii. (1879) p. 1214. 

 X See ante, p. 454. § ' Kev. Internat. Sci.,' iv. (1879) p. 88. 



I! ' Aun. Sci. Nat. (Bot.),' vii. (1879) p. ISO. 



