1901] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 23 
bacteria are communicated by Dr. Levin, of Stockholm, 
(Annales de ’l Institut Pasteur) who took part in the 
Natthorst expedition during the summer of 1898. Work- 
ing each time with 20,000 liters of air, he found practi- 
cally no bacteria. Sea-water, snow and ice yielded on an 
average one bacterium per ll c.c. In twelve samples of 
brown mud he found only asingle bacterium. The intes- 
tinal contents of polar bears, eider ducks and other birds, 
sharks, sea urchins, anemones, and crabs were nearly al- 
ways sterile. Not only did he obtain no growths, but he 
was unable to find evidence of the presence of bacteria 
after staining the intestinal contents -with the usual 
agents. The results confirm the conclusions of Nencki, 
Nuttall and Theirfelder concerning the presence of bac- 
teria as a non-essential factor in digestion.—American 
Journal of the Medical Sciences. 
A NEw BACILLUS FROM VaCccINE LyMPH.—-Nakanishi 
(Centralbl. f. Bakt. Bd. xxvii, No. 18) describes a ba- 
cillus which he finds constantly present in vaccinia pus- 
tules, and which he has experimentally investigated. 
This is present in the epithelial cells of the ‘“‘vaccine pulp” 
of calves, either as a rod-shaped form, staining ina bipo- 
lar fashion, or as a sperical or oval form taking the stain 
less perfectly. In the lymph from children, on the other 
hand, the rod-form is not found, but large, round refrac- 
tive organisms are present, similar to those found in calf 
lymph, which are looked upon by the writer as variation 
forms of the bacillus. Pure cultures of the bacillus were 
obtained on agar plates both from the calf lymph and 
from lymph drawn from seven-days-old vesicles on the 
arms ofchildren. The organism grows but on solidified 
blood-serum, and resembles morphologically, the diphthe- 
ria and the so-called pseudo-diphtheria bacilli ; it is a fac- 
ultative anaerobe. 
PNEUMOCOCCIC ARTHRITIS.—A case of pneumococcic ar- 
