1898.1 MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL 41 



mental positions, zoolog-ical and botanical, and throws into 

 the list — " a person named Bowers, from Martinsburg-, 

 W. Va., to be U. S. Fish Commissioner." The work of 

 the U. S. Fish Commission is by law larg-ely practical, 

 statistical and economic. Of course zoolog"ists and ichthy- 

 ologfists who care little for what is outside of what they 

 call " science," would have preferred to welcome some col- 

 leg"e professor to this position. But Professor Baird, the 

 founder of the commission, set the precedent by recom- 

 mending- as his own successor "a person named " Ferg-u- 

 son. President Cleveland appointed " a person named " 

 Brice as commissioner, and the present appointment con- 

 tinues the divorce of fish hatching-fromembryolog-y, classi- 

 fication and museum collecting. The new commissioner 

 would do well, however, to call to his aid men of science 

 who can work with practical ends in view. Perhaps 

 money has been wasted in the past from too severel}' 

 ig-noring- practical men of science and from assuming- that 

 men of science must of necessity be- unpractical. 



Testing Tuberculous Milk. — At Owen Colleg-e, London, 

 Prof. S. Delepine takes the milk directly from a sing-le 

 cow into a sterilized vessel and avoids all mixing-. In the 

 laboratory 80 c. c, of the milk are centrifug-alized in two 

 stout cylindrical test tubes holding- 40 c. c. each. The 

 tubes are sterilized by steam. A centrifug'al machine 

 g-iving- 3,000 revolutions per minute is used for 15 minutes. 

 The tubes are kept closed with an india rubber cap till the 

 moment they are used. When the centrifug-alization is 

 completed the thickness of the layer of cream and the di- 

 ameter of the sediment are measured, the color of the 

 milk and sediment are told, and the reaction and specific 

 g-ravity of the milk in the bottle are taken. Microscopical 

 preparations are then made with the cream and sediment 

 of the prepared milk. One drop of cream is taken with 

 a sterilized platinum loop, spread on a cover g-lass and 

 allowed to dry. The cream, tog-ether with the milk, is 

 then removed by means of a wide pipetle connected with a 

 vacuum apparatus. This is done with the tube standing- 

 vertically and without disturbing- the sediment. When 



