REVIEW. 



Further Researches into the History of the Bacteria. Conducted 

 by and under the direction of Professor Cohn.^ 



The rapid appearance of the first two parts of the second 

 volume of these invaluable Beitriige, edited by Professor Cohn, so 

 soon after the publication of the concluding part of the first 

 volume, affords a curious illustration of the uncertainty which one 

 is made to feel about the publication of German journals ; how- 

 ever, we may congratulate ourselves on the fact that two fresh 

 papers on the history of the Bacteria are to be found in the second 

 part. The first is by Professor Cohn himself on the '■' Biology of 

 Bacillus ;" the second by Dr. Koch, on the " Etiology of Splenic 

 Pever.''^ This latter has been referred to by Professor Tyndall, 

 in his lecture on " Permentation and its Bearings on Disease,"^ 

 which has, I suppose, been read by every one who takes an 

 interest in the problems, which these lowly organisms offer for 

 our consideration. In continuation of my account of the former 

 researches,^ I will now enter into the details of this fresh 

 publication. 



In preparing the former I found it would conduce to clearness 

 if I followed Professor Cohn^s method of numbered paragraphs. 

 This method I will again adopt. 



1. The first paragraph deals with the discussion as to sponta- 

 neous generation, and points out how the supporters of this 

 doctrine had practically come to suppose, that substances which 

 were submitted to the temperature of boiling water were unable 

 to produce living matter. 



2. But such a supposition has been shown to be incorrect, and 

 Dr. Charlton Bastian has, in ' Nature ' (Feb. 10th, 1876), brought 

 a list of nineteen " important witnesses, among whom were phy- 

 siologists of the first order," to show that " skilled observers'' 

 had already noticed the phenomenon ; prominent among sub- 

 stances which so behave are peas ; and Cohn relates how the 

 manufacturers of pots of preserved vegetables at Liibeck have, 



^ 'Beitrage zur Biologie der Pflangen,' 2er Bd., 2es Heft, 1876. 



- ' Fortnightly Review,' November, 1870. 



^ ' Quarterly Journal Microscopical Science,' July, 1S7G. 



VOL. XVII. NEW SEll. 1? 



