1889.] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 209 



animation with the microscope by an expert would discover, renders its 

 use terribly hazardous. While employed by the Board of Health of 

 the city of Springfield. Mass., some years since, to examine samples of 

 water which were considered suspicious, a quantity of water, of which 

 we knew nothing at the time save the sample number, was examined, 

 and revealed so small an amount of impurities when subjected to chemi- 

 cal tests that we should not have condemned it for use. On examining 

 it with the microscope, however, we found a small quantity of sedi- 

 mentary particles of organic matter, about which swarms of suspicious 

 bacteria were moving. As this was before the introduction of culture 

 tests in connection with water examination, we carried the examination 

 no further, but reported the water as suspicious, and advised the pro- 

 hibition of its use. A few days later we learned from the Health Office 

 that five cases of typhoid fever had occurred among those using the 

 water. The use of the water was discontinued, and all trouble ceased. 

 Other cases of a similar but less marked nature came to our notice, indi- 

 cating with clearness the importance of critical microscopic examina- 

 tion of all waters presented for analysis. 



The presence of even small quantities of nitrogenous material, and 

 especially of urea, indicating the presence of sewage even in small pro- 

 portions, reveals the possibility of sudden and unannounced hazard, and 

 so reckless is the use of well-water not only in country villages, but 

 even in small cities, that only the most rigid restrictions can avoid the 

 most terrible results. We have only to recall the wells that any one 

 who has lived in a village or small city can remember in order to realize 

 how little hard sense and what a fearful amount of ignorance and in- 

 difference prevails. What seems to us a marvel is that so few cases of 

 serious disease occur when so many are utterly reckless in the use of 

 water from wells which must inevitably catch large amounts of surface 

 drainage, if not of more serious drainage from cess-pools. 



MEDICAL MICROSCOPY.* 



A Cure for Elephantiasis. — It is now generally held that elephan- 

 tiasis has for its exciting cause, in many cases at least, a parasite, Filar ia 

 sanguinis hominis. Dr. Thomas, of Ceylon, thinks he has found its 

 proper parasiticide in sulphide of calcium administered internally. 

 For elephantiasis in the adult he gives a grain of the drug twice a day 

 after eating for a month, then increases the dose to a grain and a half, 

 and if the drug is well borne, to two grains twice daily. No bad symp- 

 toms ensued. Cases of less than six months' standing were cured in one 

 or two months. 



o 



How to Look for Tubercle Bacilli in Sputum. f — Ehrlich's 

 method, somewhat modified, is as follows : 



Press a little of the suspected sputum between two cover-glasses so 

 as to get a very thin layer. Dry the cover-glasses separately, either by 



* This Department is conducted by F. Blanchard, M. D. 



f Tranlated from Kunze's Grundiss der Praktischen Medicin. Appendix to Von Ziemssen on " Pul- 

 monary Tuberculosis." 



