[ 743 ] 



sterilized at the boiling temperature for one hour. Then the 

 dead bacilli are separated out from the liquid portion and 

 the liquid portion (which is called mallein) is used for diag- 

 nosing the disease in suspicious cases (when an injection 

 developes the disease) or in very small and repeated doses, 

 for curing the disease, Once cured, even a strong dose of 

 mallein does not cause fever in the animal into which the 

 fluid is injected. For diagnostic, purposes the use of another 

 toxine is also of some interest to agriculturists. Professor 

 Koch discovered that tuberculin, i. e., the serum separated 

 out in the above described manner from a culture of Bacil- 

 lus tuberculosis, when injected in small doses into cattle 

 afflicted with tuberculosis, produces fever, while a similar 

 dose injected into an animal which is not so suffering, 

 produces no reaction. This is thus a good means of detect- 

 ing tuberculosis in cattle. In the case of cholera the 

 investigation of Professor Rudolf Emmerich of Munich and 

 Dr. Ziro Tsuboi his Japanese colleague, tend to show that the 

 active principle in this disease also is a toxine, which is 

 probably nitric acid, as the symptoms of cholera and the 

 symptoms of nitric acid poisoning closely resemble each 

 other. 



1,287. In classifying microbes , however, this principle of 

 division according to the nature of fermentation each produces 

 is not taken into account, but stress is rather laid on the ap- 

 pearance and form of the organism, under the microscope. The 

 simplest form of the microbe is the coccus or spherical form 

 and those which retain this form to the last are known as mi- 

 crococci. Micrococci, however, become slightly elongated and 

 then dumb-bell shaped before dividing themselves each into 

 two. But the general appearance of a cluster of micrococci 

 is that of minute little spheres. If the general appearance of 

 a cluster of microscopic fungi indicates elongation, i. e., if 

 most of the microbes in the cluster instead of being spherical 

 are spindle shaped, or like short rods, in appearance, then they 



