1889.] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 67 



BIOLOGICAL NOTES.* 



Is Hydrophobia a Disease ? — In a paper recently read before the 

 Medical Society of the State of Pennsylvania, Dr. Charles W. Dulles 

 presents what he considers abundant proof that hydrophobia is not a 

 specific disease that can be communicated by the bite of an animal, but 

 rather a physical condition, and that the word should be used to de- 

 scribe this physical condition in the same way thattheword convulsions 

 is used. In substantiation of this he maintains that hydrophobia is 

 practically unknown except where a superstitious fear of it is common ; 

 that in most cases there is no evidence that the animal which did the 

 biting was rabid, and that the tests for hydrophobia, which have not 

 generally been sufficiently accurate to be of any scientific value, have 

 in many cases been so applied as to aid in producing the symptoms 

 usually expected to make their appearance. He maintains that Pas- 

 teur's methods of treatment have had no effect in reducing the mortality 

 from so-called hydrophobia in Paris, but that the number of deaths in 

 1887 was greater than in 1880, 1883, 1884, or 1886. He claims also 

 that the interest in Pasteur's methods of treatment has greatly decreased, 

 and urges that the banishment of the superstitious fear of hydrophobia 

 will render it a thing unknown. On the other hand, the report of the 

 Pasteur Institute held in Paris Nov. 14th, as given by the New York 

 Medical Record, shows that the rate of mortality for the year 1S86 was 

 1.24 per cent, of those treated ; for 18S7, 1.12 per cent. ; and for 1S88, 

 0.77 P er cent., while the estimated mortality previous to the introduc- 

 tion of inoculation for rabies in 1885 was 15.90 per cent. This would 

 go to show that much has been accomplished toward decreasing the 

 number of deaths from hydrophobia, whether we are to consider it as 

 a specific disease or not. 



Respiration of a Fish by the Caudal Fin. — Mr. Alfred C. 

 Haddon in a letter to Natwe (vol. xxxix, p. 285) reports that he Cov- 

 ered the caudal fin of a species of Periophthalmus with gold size and 

 the fish lived on an average only twelve to eighteen hours, although 

 the gills were in a normal condition. If the fish were placed in sea 

 water so that the tail was completely covered but the gills left exposed, 

 it lived a day and a half. The microscopic examination of the caudal 

 fin showed that the circulation of the blood was very vigorous in it. 

 The fish is in a habit of resting with its tail immersed in water when the 

 rest of the body is out of the water. 



Consumption. — It is now not quite seven years since Dr. Koch an- 

 nounced to the Physiological Society of Berlin the result of his inves- 

 tigations upon the causes of consumption and his discovery of the uni- 

 versal presence of a particular microbe, which he named Bacillus tuber- 

 culosis, in the diseased organs of both men and lower animals who 

 were suffering from the disease called tuberculosis or tuberculous con- 

 sumption, and yet die acceptance of the theory that this organism is 

 the cause of the disease has become so general that it must soon be 

 practically universal. With this acceptance of the conclusions of Dr. 

 Koch has gone a rapid progress in our knowledge of the circumstances 

 that tend to propagate it, and the extent to which the most important 

 domestic animals are susceptible to the disease, and may therefore be 



* This depart/uent is conducted by Prof. J. H. Pillsbury. <, 



