PROGKESS OF MICROSCOPICAL SCIENCE. 181 



up to the medulla oblongata, where they undergo reflexion into motor 

 nerves. 



TJie Vienna Syphilis Corpuscles. — A medical jom-nal, quoting from 

 the ' AUg. Wiener Med. Zeit.' of February 6th, says that the latter 

 contains a serio-comic article on this discovery of Lostorfer, which, 

 for a few moments, shook such men as Strieker, Hebra, and Skoda 

 ofi" their balance. Dr. Wedl, the author of the article, says : — 

 " These corpuscles will, at the next meeting of the Medical Society, 

 be solemnly buried in Dr. Strieker's museum. The sympathy of 

 the profession is requested under these painful cii'cumstances, and the 

 Society will doubtless institute special masses for the repose of the 

 departed. It is very lucky that the members did not, in their hurry, 

 have medals struck for the discovery ; and there is time left to send 

 counter orders to Paris and London, to stop enthusiastic researches 

 which might bring some blame on the Vienna Medical Society. The 

 latter may derive from this mishap the lesson to beware of allo\\dng 

 itself to be made a trumpet to ephemeral discoveries." The ' Lancet,' 

 however, finds it difficult to believe^and we quite coincide with it — 

 that observers like Strieker and Hebra would have been carried away 

 by imperfect exj)eriments. It is clearly stated that different kinds of 

 blood were placed under Dr. Lostorfer's microscope (he not knowing 

 whence the blood came), and he constantly recognized his peculiar 

 corpuscles in blood coming from patients affected with syphilis. 

 Time will show who is right. 



Alternation of Generations in Fungi, talcing place in different 

 Plants. — This phenomenon, though asserted to occur by Professor 

 Oersted, is disbelieved rather by Mr. Cooke. He believes it takes 

 place in the same plant as in the case of Bunt, but he feels great 

 difficulty in believing in this process, where the generations were 

 passed in different plants, until confirmed by other observers. If the 

 spores of ^cidium Berheridis were taken from the Barberry and sown 

 upon young wheat plants, and all these plants became infected with 

 corn mildew [Puccinia graminis), to which wheat is but too prone, it 

 certainly seemed premature to say that the spores of the ^cidiiim 

 caused the Puccinia to be developed as a second generation ; whereas 

 it is much more probable that the germs of the mildew already lay 

 dormant in the wheat, and, at most, the sowing and growing of the 

 ^cidium spores only stimulated the mildew to a more rapid develop- 

 ment. He said, at one of the meetings of the Quekett Club, that 

 he certainly thought such a theory more probable, and quite as sound 

 as the other. 



Hydra carnea in Lake Superior, U.S. — The United States' Lake 

 Survey Eeport has not yet been issued, but a portion of the zoolo- 

 gical records have been published in ' Silliman's Journal.' From 

 it (by S. I. Smith and A. E. Verrill) we learn that this beautiful 

 Hydra (agreeing with Ayer's description of this species) was very 

 abundant at the eastern end of St. Ignace, upon rocks along the shore 

 and near the surface, frequently completely covering quite large sur- 

 faces where they were protected from the direct sunlight, and was 



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