54 THE MICROSCOPE. 



micrococci of impure water or vegetable infusions, showed me that 

 they do not retain their forms after being subjected to the above 

 treatment, and that in many instances they can be totally destroyed 

 by heat on the object glass itself. On the other hand, the fossil 

 diatoms resisted the action of heat and acids and retained their 

 forms. I can only draw one conclusion from- these observations; 

 namely, that the minute siliceous bodies found in the atmosphere 

 are also fossil, they are micrococci of another age. — ]3r. Phipson, in 

 Chemical Xrivs. 



The Specific Agent of Typhoid Fever. — Prof. Klebs, of 

 Prague, believes that he has discovered the micro-organism which 

 constitutes the specific agent of typhoid fever, and develops his 

 views in a paper entitled " Der Ileotyphus eina Schistomy cose," 

 publislied in the Archiv fur Experimentale Pat/ioloji^ie, t. xii. p. 

 231, 1S80. Prof. Klebs has for a long time, assisted by his pupils, 

 been making researches in that direction. He writes that he has 

 been able to find at the necropsy of twenty-four persons carried oft" 

 by dothinenteritis, microbes in various organs : in the intestine mu- 

 cous membrane, in the thickness of the cartilages of the larynx, in 

 the pia mater, in the foci of lobular pneumonia, in the mesenteric 

 ganglia, in the parenchymata of the liver, and generally diffused in 

 the organs which showed the most decided lesions. These micro- 

 organisms showed themselves in the form of rods, about eighty 

 micrometers in length and 0.5 to 0.6 micrometers in thickness. They 

 have been constantly observed in the bodies of dothinenteric 

 patients since the attention of Prof. Klebs was drawn to the subject, 

 and they are always ab.sent from the organs, and especially the 

 intestines, of subjects who have died from any other disease than 

 typhoid. — British Mt-dical Journal. 



SCIATICA. 



DR. Smythe, Dr. Coniegy, and Dr. Dacosta have each recom- 

 mended hypodermic injections of -^ grain atropia, three drop 

 doses of sulphuric ether, and deep injections of chloroform near the 

 seat of pain. 



