1896.] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 219 



litharg-e, 9 parts of fine white sand, 9 parts of plaster paris, 

 and 1 part of linseed oil; then add some drying- oil. This 

 cement must stand several hours before using-. It be- 

 comes very hard, and serves both for sweet and salt water 

 tanks, but is best for the latter. — W. Drug-g-ist. 



BACTERIOLOGY. 



Flies Carriers of Germs. — As far back as 1886, Hoffman 

 demonstrated the presence of tubercule bacilli in the bodies 

 of flies captured in a room occupied by a consumptive. 

 The dropping-s of the flies were full of the bacilli, which 

 were shown by experiment to be fully virulent. 



Six years later Mr. A. Coppen- Jones, of Switzerland, by 

 employing- cultures of chromogenic bacteria, proved that 

 infection can be, and actually is, carried, not only in the 

 bodies of flies, but also by their feet. In one experiment, 

 pieces of a culture of the bacilli prodig-iosus were mixed 

 in a mortar with some hig-hly tuberculous sputum, in such 

 a way that stained preparations showed these two varieties 

 of microbes to be present in about equal numbers. Flies 

 were allowed to light on the sputum, and, after they had 

 flown about for a time, were permitted to walk across the 

 surface of sterilized potatoes. In forty-eig-ht hours num- 

 erous colonies of the bacillus prodig-iosus made their ap- 

 pearance. 



From this result we can reasonably conclude that flies 

 are a constant source of infection. More especially is this 

 the case in those warm countries where g-erm g-rowth and 

 decomposition are favored, and where no means whatever 

 are employed to exclude flies from living- rooms. — Pacific 

 Record. 



The Transmission of Microbian Disease through the 

 Medium of Books. — M. du Cazal and M. Catrin recently 

 published in the Annals de V Institut Pasteur the result of a 

 series of experiments for the pvirpose of determining- to 

 what extent microbian disease is transmitted by books. 



