1889.] The Spinal Curvature in an Aboriginal Australian. 301 



organism in different cultures. Of particular interest is the fact, 

 which is brought out in the quantitative results of the experiments 

 made by both of us, that there is a great variation in the power of 

 resistance possessed by the individual organisms in an ordinary 

 cultivation, and that conditions which exert a rapidly destructive 

 influence on the majority of the microbes, leave the more hardy 

 individuals of the same culture unaffected. 



I have already had occasion* to notice a similar result in experi- 

 ments on the introduction of Koch's comma spirilla &ndB.pyocyaneus 

 into drinking water ; in these experiments it was repeatedly observed 

 that the greater proportion of the organisms which were inoculated 

 into the water rapidly died off, whilst a small proportion survived 

 much longer, and, in fact, subsequently exhibited multiplication. 



II. "The Spinal Curvature in an Aboriginal Australian." By 

 D. J. CUNNINGHAM, M.D., Trinity College, Dublin. Com- 

 municated by Sir W. TURNER, Knt., F.R.S. Received 

 January 14, 1889. 



(Abstract.) 



1. The lumbo- vertebral index gives no information as to the 

 character and degree of the lumbar curve of the vertebral column. 

 If it did so, we might assume that in the native Australian the 

 lumbar region of the spine was curved so as to present a concavity to 

 the front. 



2. To estimate the extent and the degree of the different curves of 

 the column it is necessary to examine fresh spines in which both the 

 vertebral bodies and intervertebral disks may be studied in conjunc- 

 tion with each other. 



3. In the spine of the native Australian (described in the extended 

 paper) the secondary curves (i.e., the cervical and the lumbar curves) 

 are strongly accentuated, whilst the primary curves (i.e., dorsal and 

 sacral) are not so marked. In these particulars the Australian 

 spine resembles somewhat the spine of a Chimpanzee. 



4. The points of inflexion of the axial curvature of the vertebral 

 column, in the case of the cervico-dorsal transition and the dorso- 

 lumbar transition, are placed differently in the Australian from the 

 corresponding points in the European female^ and the Chimpanzee. 



5. In the European the sacral curve is cut off in the most decided 

 manner from the lumbar curve : not so in the Australian. In the 

 latter the first sacral vertebra just escapes being included in the 

 lumbar curve, and the importance of this is centred in the fact that 



* " Ou the Multiplication ot Micro-organisms." ' Boy. Soc. Proc.,' vol. 40, 1886, 

 p. 543. 



