1897J MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 387 



EDITORIAL. 



Formaldehyde. — The credit of the discovery of the 

 powerful antiseptic properties of formaldehyde and its 

 practical application is due to A. Frillat, who in 1888 first 

 noticed its preserving- action on samples of wine, and in 

 1891 made public his experiments, showing- it to possess 

 antiseptic properties much superior to all non-toxic or- 

 ganic antiseptics then known. 



Typhoid Fever. — Water drawn from an abandoned well 

 has given rise to several cases of typhoid fever near Rye 

 Beach, N. Y. A party consisting of half a dozen persons 

 went into camp near that place and drank water from it. 

 The whole party immediately became ill, and two of the 

 members have since died. 



Fire-Blight. — This is now supposed to be due to a bac- 

 terium which enters the plant through the tender parts of 

 the tissue, like the flower-buds or young leaf-buds as they 

 unfold, and spreads down through the branches. When 

 it appears on the main branches it is often called "body 

 blight," and its presence is marked by brown and lifeless 

 patches which become sunken. Wherever the blight ap- 

 pears the limbs should be cut off at once below the point 

 where the infection has reached, and as a precaution 

 ag-ainst the spread of the disease the pruning-s should be 

 burned. 



MICBOSGOFICAL APPARATUS. 



The Micromotoscope — Is akinetoscope for photograph- 

 ing cell life in motion, as seen in the microscopic field. 

 The pictures are taken by the gelatine film at from 5,000 

 to 15,000 magnifications, at the rate of from 1,600 to 3,500 

 per minute. The images being magnified thousands of 

 times when projected upon a screen, the views of some of 

 the families of microbes are very realistic. It has been 

 learned that some of them act as if intelligent. The pho- 

 tographs of the blood in circulation in the thinnest part of 

 the ears and webs of the fingers, showing the cappillary 



