160 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [July, 



Mercury, Cyanide, and Oxy-cyanide. — These two mercury salts 

 bid i'air to come into marked prominence now ; and recent experiences 

 point especially to the Oxy-cyanide as being destined to supplant the 

 Corrosive Sublimate. According to Chibret, it is exhibited in solution 

 of I : 1500, and is tolerated far better than the bi-chloride. Also for 

 the disinfection of surgical instruments it shows a superiority to the sub- 

 limate, in not attacking the metal, when used in solutions of same 

 strength as the sublimate. In the disinfection of bacterialized Peptone- 

 fluid, it exhibited six thnes the bactericidal force of the Bi-chloride ; 

 that is, a solvition of Mercury Oxy-cyanide of i in 12,000 acted equally 

 to one of Mercury Bi-cloride of i in 2,000. — Merck's Bulletin. 



Pasteur Institute. — This building, in Paris, was commenced in 

 May, 18S7, and has cost $600,000. Dr. Roux directs the department 

 of micro-biology. In the immense work-room are seven tables with 

 tops of enamelled lava. Each table is large enough for two students to 

 occupv themselves with microscopical studies. 



Infected Books. — The circulating libraries of Dresden have ex- 

 perimented upon the communication of infectious diseases by books. 

 Soiled leaves of books were rubbed first with dry fingers and then with 

 wet ones and the result microscopically examined. Few or no microbes 

 were found on the dry finger, but many on the wet finger. Those mi- 

 crobes found were not infectious, but why might not infectious germs 

 be transmitted in this manner? 



Microscopic Examination of Liver and Kidneys for the 

 Germ of Yellow Fever. — Both smear-preparations and sections are 

 marked by the presence of a most plentiful representation of an ovoid 

 germ with distinct belted appearance and sharplv-colored pole ends, 

 the normal length being twice as long as wide. Some individuals are 

 three or four times longer than wide, this increase in length being en- 

 tirely due to an increased amount of the afore-mention uncolored sub- 

 stance. In some instances two, three, or four of either of the above- 

 described forms are to be seen attached together, forming short chains. 

 Such a short chain is at other times composed of both these of forms 

 united together, there being more of one and sometimes more of the other 

 in the same. 



The organisms appeared, as this variety always does, in the sections 

 of organs, some of them end on, when they looked like cocci ; beside 

 these would be others lying horizontally, which presented their com- 

 plete form, the colored pole-end and clear centre being distinctly visi- 

 ble ; in many localities they were united in pairs, while many of the 

 liver cells contained large numbers of them. Here and there one would 

 find a capillary embolus made of nothing else ; here they frequently 

 grew in filaments of considerable length, large clusters of such being 

 present; occasionally single filaments were to be seen in capillaries 

 which the section, had cut horizontal to their course, but in general, ex- 

 cept in the embolisms, they were seen in pairs or groups of three mem- 

 bers. Capillary embolisms were more frequent in the kidney than in 

 the liver. 



No other micro-organisms were present, notwithstanding numerous 

 sections of the same tissues were subjected to very man\- tinctions used 

 in this work. — Frank S. Billings in The Times and Register, June 



