1896.] MICROSCOPICAL JOUTINAL. 219 



litharg-e, 9 parts of fine white sand, 9 parts of plaster paris, 

 and 1 pcirt of linseed oil; then add some drying- oil. This 

 cement must stand several hours before using-. It be- 

 comes very hard, and serves both for sweet and salt water 

 tanks, but is best for the latter,— W. Drug-g-ist. 



BACTERIOLOGY. 



Flies Carriers of Germs. — As far back as 1886, Hoffman 

 demonstrated the presence of tubercule bacilli inthe bodies 

 of fiies captured in a room occupied by a consumptive. 

 The dropping-s of the flies were full of the bacilli, which 

 were shown by experiment to be fully virulent. 



Six years later Mr. A. Coppen-Jones, of Switzerland, by 

 employing- cultures of chromog-enic bacteria, proved that 

 infection can be, and actually is, carried, not only in the 

 bodies of flies, but also by their feet. In one experiment, 

 pieces of a culture of the bacilli prodig-iosus were mixed 

 in a mortar with some hig-hly tuberculous sputum, in such 

 a way that stained preparations showed these two varieties 

 of microbes to be present in about equal numbers. Flies 

 were allowed to lig-ht on the sputum, and, after they had 

 flown about for a time, were permitted to walk across the 

 surface of sterilized potatoes. In forty-eig-ht hours num- 

 erous colonies of the bacillus prodigiosus made their ap- 

 pearance. 



From this result we can reasonably conclude that flies 

 are a constant source of infection. More especially is this 

 the case in those warm countries where g-erm g-rowth and 

 decomposition are favored, and where no means whatever 

 are employed to exclude flies from living- rooms. — Pacific 

 Record. 



The Transmission of Microbian Disease through the 

 Medium of Books. — M. du Cazal and M. Catrin recently 

 published in the Annals de V Institut Pasteur the result of a 

 series of experiments for the purpose of determining- to 

 what extent microbian disease is transmitted by books, 



