356 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [Nov. 



The Microscopical Society, of Illiiois, also passed reso- 

 lutions of sympathy with his family. But these slips of 

 paper form the only monument to his memory. The 

 American opticians and microscopists have to the present 

 day neglected to mark for future generations the spots 

 where the remains of the greatest opticians of the world 

 were laid to rest ; neither Tolles' nor Spencer''s grave 

 shoio any kind of lasting renienihrances. 



EDITORIAL. 



Cause and Prevention of Cholera. — E. H. Hankin, a 

 fellow in St. John's College, Cambridge, England, has issued a 

 second and enlarged edition of his treatise on the above subject. 

 He accepts the comma bacillus as always associated with 

 cholera as its cause. He describes its getting into water, its 

 growth, multiplication and death. He recommends disinfec- 

 tion of cells and methods for keeping micro-organisms out of 

 the body. 



The Mails. — A rule of the P. 0. D. is as follows : " Disease 

 germs, discharges of any kind from diseased persons, or other 

 things of like character, no matter how securely put up '' are 

 excluded. In France it is permitted to send bacteriological 

 specimens when put up in a mailing package especially de- 

 signed for the purpose. 



Dr. Henry Mitchell, Secretary of the N. J. State Board of 

 Health has tried to induce a modification of this rule. The P. 

 M. G. has refused. England and France laugh at our stupidity 

 in accepting ignorant politicians as public officials. 



Louis Pasteur. — The daily and weekly papers have been 

 so loaded with notices of the death and life of this savant that 

 our readers have probabaly become familiar with his work. In 

 it all the microscope was his most constant companion. 



His great work in bacteriology consisted in the attenuation 

 of the anthrax bacillus and other pathogenic organisms by 

 which he procured a vaccinating virus, capable of producing a 



