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micro organisms upon life, from its humblest up to its highest 
forms, M. Giard, a French naturalist, has recently made some 
highly interesting experiments on the phosphorescence of various 
crustacea. ‘This appearance has long been known to be an infec- 
tious disease, but it his now been definitely traced by M,. Giard to 
the presence of bacteria in the muscles of the crustacean. He 
inoculated several healthy specimens from one which was phos- 
phorescent, and so quickly was the infection conveyed that his 
laboratory was quite illuminated by these diseased specimens. The 
disease was, moreover, continued in an unattenuated form through 
five or six generations, each crustacean dying within three or four 
days. The phosphorescence lingered some hours after death. 
The oral aperture of flies has been found to be swarming with 
bacteria. which may account for the sometimes poisonous effects 
ot their bite. Indeed micro-organisms abound everywhere and in 
the most unsuspected places. A Russian scientist lately discovered 
that even hailstones are teeming with them, and that their number 
averages no less than twenty-one thousand to every cubic centi- 
metre. 
M. Pasteur continues with unabated zeal his valuable experiments 
for the prevention and cure of disease, but no fresh discovery of 
special importance was recorded by him last year. 
In various places investigations are going forward as the cause 
of that terrible disease, leprosy, of which we have heard so much 
lately. Although a specific form of bacillus is said to be found in 
leprous subjects, yet its method of propagation is still unknown. 
A fund is, however, being raised in this country to found scholar- 
ships for two students. one of whom will make Europe and the 
other India and the Colonies the field of his research, and it is 
hoped that this may lead to a better understanding, and conse- 
quently better treatment of this dread malady. 
The fashionable complaint of influenza may also probably be 
attributed to the chemical action set up in the system by some 
specific form of bacillus. Indeed two doctors in Vienna, Professor 
Weichselbaum and Dr. Jolles, claim severally to have found the 
genuine influenza bacillus, which they describe as closely resem- 
bling the pneumonia coccus discovered by Dr. Friedlander. 1n this 
country one gentleman claims to have found it by sending up into 
the air a kite, spread with a layer of treacle, which became covered 
with a prickly hedgehog-like coating of microscopic organisms, 
which ]e believes to be the veritable influenza bacilli. Dr. Symes 
Thompson, in his recent interesting lectures on the subject, says 
that a similar epidemic is described by Homer, and that in this 
country its first recorded appearance was in 1173, and several out- 
breaks seem to have occurred during each century since the 14th 
