CURIOUS FUNERAL CEREMONIES, 831 



acting on sucli an assumption the basis for it ought\ to be established, 

 which it certainly is not. 



Secondly, is it a well-established fact that this " comma-shaped " 

 bacillus is present only in cholera evacuations ? If it should be found 

 that this bacillus is absent from the alimentary canal in all other dis- 

 eases, then we could at best recognize it as pathognomonic, but it by 

 no means follows that it is also pathogenetic. 



I have lately had the opportunity of inspecting this "comma- 

 shaped " bacillus in specimens prepared by Koch, from the rice-water 

 evacuations, and also in artificial cultures, and I have fully convinced 

 myself of its reality. But I possess prepared specimens of evacuations 

 of patients suffering from severe diarrhoea (in an epidemic outbreak 

 of diarrhoea in adults in Cornwall in the autumn of 1883, and investi- 

 gated by Dr. Ballard, Inspector to the Local Government Board), in 

 which specimens, besides micrococci and straight bacilli, there are 

 undoubtedly present bacteria which, in shape and size and mode of 

 staining, so closely resemble the " comma -shaped " bacilli of cholera 

 that I am unable to discover a difference between them. I haffe, how- 

 ever, not made any artificial cultivation of them, and therefore can 

 not say whether there exist any differences between the two, notably 

 as regards their mode of growth. 



Here is one other point to which we wish to draw attention : as 

 Cohn (" Beitrage zur Biologic der Pflanzen," Heft ii) has shown, and 

 as is now generally accepted, a rod bacterium which is characterized 

 by being curved is regarded not as a bacillus but as a vibrio ; and it 

 is not quite clear why, unless for the sake of novelty, Koch, generally 

 accepting Cohn's terminology, should in the case of the cholera bac- 

 terium have deviated from it, and should not rather have spoken of 

 it as a vibrio, because a vibrio, and particularly a Yihrio rugula (sp. 

 Cohn), is the organism which he describes as a "comma-shaped" 

 bacillus. — Nature. 



CUKIOUS rUE'ERAL CEEEMOOTES. 



AMOKG the most striking features of the popular life and thought 

 which the student of the different races of mankind has to con- 

 sider are the ideas and usages that are grouped around death. The 

 fact of death, on account of its absolute certainty as well as on ac- 

 count of its nature, is the incident of human existence that has struck 

 all peoples with the most solemn impressiveness. If there are any 

 races who appear indifferent to death, it will most probably be found 

 on examination that their feeling is not the natural one, but the result- 

 ant of modifications that have been impressed upon it by some feature 

 of their religious system or under the influence of peculiar ideas of 



