14 



THE AMERICAN MONTHLY 



[January, 



our readers for his meritorious work 

 in combating the germ theory of dis- 

 ease, has announced that he finds 

 Koch's Bacillus tuberculosis to be crys- 

 tals of a fatty acid ! We are utterly 

 unable to conceive how such observ- 

 ers as Koch, and many others who 

 have repeated his experiments, could 

 make such a serious blunder, as in- 

 dicated by Dr. Schmidt. It is simply 

 incredible. We have ourselves seen 

 the Bacillus^ and although the idea of 

 its possibly being crystals of fat had 

 not then been presented to our mind, 

 we are reasonably confident that such 

 was not the case. 



Whether the results arrived at by 

 Koch are sustained by future observa- 

 tions or not, the question of the con- 

 tagiousness of tubercular disease may 

 be regarded as almost an established 

 fact. The evidence in favor of this 

 view has become very strong since at- 

 tention has been drawn to the subject 

 by the announcement of the discovery 

 of the bacillus. If consumption be a 

 contagious disease, few will be found 

 to doubt that it is caused by some 

 living organism, whether a bacillus or 

 a micrococcus is still, we think, uncer- 

 tain. 



Investigations on this subject de- 

 serve encouragement on every hand. 

 In no way can greater benefit be con- 

 ferred upon the race, than by the 

 discovery of the bacterial origin of 

 tubercular disease. For we may assert 

 with perfect confidence, that just as 

 surely as it is found that tuberculosis 

 is caused by living fungoid germs, so 

 surely will the disease become amen- 

 able to medical treatment, and the 

 mortality from it be diminished. Such 

 a conclusion is justified by past expe- 

 rience with other diseases of a similar 

 origin. 



ROTIFERA WITHOUT ROTARY OR- 

 GANS. — Prof. Joseph Leidy described 

 a number of rotifera without rotary 

 organs, in a paper presented to the 

 Philadelphia Academy of Sciences, 

 which is printed in the Proceeding's, 

 and illustrated with a plate, showing 



different parts of Acyclus. inquietus, 

 Leidy, n. s.p., found in the Schuylkill 

 River, and a figure of Dictyophora 

 vorax, which Prof. Leidy regards as 

 probably identical with Cupelopagis 

 bucinedax, described by Prof. Forbes 

 on page 102 of Vol. III. of this Jour- 

 nal. 



The American Postal Micro- 

 scopical Club. — The operations of 

 this club have been greatly interfered 

 with by a few members " who persist- 

 ently failed to forward the boxes they 

 received." This is well known to 

 many members of the club, and it will 

 be pleasing to them to learn that those 

 members will be dropped. 



The operations of the club will soon 

 be resumed, and we trust there will be 

 a careful revision of the list of mem- 

 bers. It is our intention, hereafter, 

 to notice in these columns the con- 

 tents of the boxes as they come to us. 

 There are some members who, while 

 quite willing to avail themselves of 

 the advantages of the club, seem not 

 to regard it as any part of their obliga- 

 tions as members to contribute to the 

 general interest and value of the 

 boxes. Such persons, because they 

 must put in a slide in at least one box 

 in the course of a year, select some 

 miserable preparation of some com- 

 mon object, of no value, and put it in, 

 and consider their duty done. We 

 think every member of the club should 

 feel morally bound to put in an in- 

 structive preparation, and to write a 

 few words descriptive of it, indicating 

 its special points of interest. To do 

 this does not require profound knowl- 

 edge of any branch of study. We 

 take it that original observations are 

 only expected from a very few mem- 

 bers of the club. The great purpose 

 of the club is to contribute to a gen- 

 eral knowledge of microscopic objects. 

 If a member puts in a section of a 

 plant-stem, or of a leaf, any one well 

 informed in histological botany will 

 immediately discover its peculiar char- 

 acteristics. But how about those whose 

 studies have been conducted in other 



