January 12, 191 i] 



NATURE 



339 



directs attention to the importance of a proper 

 incubation temperature. He found, using the liquid 

 cuhure, that the yield of lactic acid at 105° F. 

 was more" than one and a half times that at 85° F., 

 and more than one and one-third times that at blood 

 heat, 984° F. Samples of five preparations were also 

 examined for the British Medical Jourtial ^ with the 

 ; )llovving results : — 



Percentage of Lactic Acid Produced. 



c I, After 10 hour's 



^""P'* incubation 



(i) Fluid culture (Oppenheimer) ... ... o'96 



(2) Fermenlactyl tablets ... ... ... o 00 



(3) Lactobacilline ,, ... ... ... 0"02 



(4) Sauerin ,, ... ... ... 007 



(5) Trilactine ,, 0-27 



From this table it will be seen that the liquid culture 

 is far superior to the tablets. The writer also 

 examined - liquid sauerin, and sauerin, trilactine, and 

 fermenlactyl tablets, and of these the liquid sauerin 

 alone could be considered satisfactorj'. 



In response to a request by the editor, several firms 

 have been good enough to furnish preparations which 



I 



Fig. 2. — Film of soured milk prepared with tablet starter. 

 Numbers of small Gram-negative bacilli present (Gram and 

 eosio, X i20o). 



have been examined by the writer with the following 



results : — 



I. Content of B. bulgaricus : — 



(i) Tablets. 



(a) B. bulgaricus present in ij'ioo and i/iooo of a 

 tablet, not in less. Streptococci also present. 



(b), (c), (d) Very few B. bulgaricus present, even in 

 i/ioo of a tablet; milk not curdled. 



{2) Fluid Culture. 



(a), (b), and (c) B. bulgaricus present even in 

 1/100,000,000 c.c. No streptococci. 



(3) Tablets. 



(a), (b), and (c) Very few B. bulgaricus present even in 

 i/ioo of a tablet; milk not curdled. 



(4) Lactic Cheese. 



B. bulgaricus present in 1/100,000 gram, not in less. 

 Streptococci present. 



(5) Sour Milk Cream Cheese. 



B. bulgaricus present even in 1/100,000,000 gram. 

 Streptococci present. 



From this it will be apparent that the fluid prepara- 

 tion (No. 2) has a content of B. bulgaricus enormously 



1 Brii. Me J. /ourn., 1909, 1., p. 104. 



2 Brit. Med. Joum., 1910, ii., p. 15S4. 



NO. 2150, VOL. 85] 



greater than the tablet preparations (Nos. i and 3). 

 The lactic cheeses, if fairly fresh, contain a high 

 content of B. bulgaricus, and are a pleasant and 

 wholesome addition to the diet. 



II. Characters of soured milk made with the prepara- 

 tions : — 



(i) Tablet. — Milk markedly curdled. Acid, but some- 

 what cheesy odour. B. bulgaricus present in moderate 

 number, also streptococci. Gram-negative bacilli present. 



(2) Fluid Culture. — Milk well curdled- Acid, pleasant 

 odour. .Abundance of B. bulgaricus ; no other micro- 

 organism. 



(3) Tablet. — Milk curdled, but B. bulgaricus scanty. 

 Gram-negative bacilli present. 



The result of these tests is to show that the tablet 

 preparations do not produce a satisfactory soured 

 milk, and the product is contaminated with bacilli 

 other than the B. bulgaricus (see Fig. 2). The fluid 

 culture, on the other hand, yielded an excellent soured 

 milk, the flavour of which, however, would probably 

 be improved if lactic streptococci were present in 

 addition. 



Special lactic acid-producing streptococci {e.g. 5. 

 lebenis) are always present in the natural sour milks, 

 they aid the rapid growth of the B. bulgaricus by 

 producing an acid environment, they tend to lessen 

 the separation of the curd, and, in the writer's opinion, 

 render the soured milk more palatable. 



The small content of B. bulgaricus present in dry 

 tablet preparations renders these com.paratively in- 

 efficient for internal administration, and not to be 

 compared with the ingestion of even a few cubic 

 centimetres of properly soured milk. 



I am indebted for the photomicrographs to Mr. 

 J. E. Barnard. 



R. T. Hewlett. 



THE BRITISH SCHOOL .AT .ATHENS."^ 



THE fifteenth volume of the ".Vnnual of the British 

 School at .\thens " is somewhat less in bulk 

 than its immediate predecessor. Probably its present 

 length is about the extreme of what is convenient for 

 a book of this format. The most important articles, 

 as before, are those which describe the continuation 

 of the work of the school at Sparta, which has been 

 so successful, and has conferred such great distinction 

 upon British archaeology in Greece. Mr. Dawkins, 

 the director, describes the work generally, and the 

 conclusion of the excavation of the sanctuary of 

 Artemis Orthia, and Mr. Droop the pottery, with 

 regard to which he has made important discoveries 

 which have given us quite a new idea of the history 

 of ceramic art in the Peloponnese. The long list of 

 inscriptions recovered in the sanctuary- of Artemis 

 Orthia is finally disposed of by Mr. A. M. Woodward, 

 who appends to his admirable and painstaking work 

 a series of corrections of re-discovered inscriptions 

 which had previously been copied by Fourmont. 



The main part of this section of the '" Annual " 

 is devoted to the description of the Menelaion, 

 the heroon of Menelaos and Helen, of whom 

 the latter, at any rate, seems to have been origin- 

 ally a minor deitv, a nature-goddess, akin to Artemis 

 Orthia herself. The shrine is placed on a hill a little 

 to the south of Sparta, and was solidly built on a 

 strong revetment- wall of great stone blocks, to which 

 the top of the hill serves as a core. This imposing 

 I work is probably of the fifth centur\- B.C., but the 

 explorers found manv traces of far older occupation, 

 going back to the Mycenaean period. 



A large number of smaller antiquities were dis- 



1 " Th*" Annual of the Tirit'sh School a' Athene." No. xv. Session 

 1008-9. Pp. viii+4i2-f2o plates. (London : MacmtlLan and G)., Ltd., iii.d.) 

 Price 251. net. 



