160 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [Jnly, 



tonsils and washing the surface of the body with a sohition of corrosive 

 subHmate, i to i,ooo. Since the bacillus requires an rdkaline medium, 

 he also uses as a gargle vegetable acids, lemon juice, or cider vinegar. 

 By these means desquamation is reduced to a minimum and albuminu- 

 ria and rheumatism are avoided. His remarks upon the disinfection 

 of the sick-room are also in jDace with the most advanced thought of 

 the age. He proves the inutility of sulphur fumigation, and gives to 

 boiling water, flowing steam, and corrosive sublimate their true first 

 rank as disinfectants. Dr. Johnson writes with the courage of con- 

 viction. 



Typhoid Bacilli in Celery. Dr. Charles M. Cresson, of Phila- 

 delphia, states tliat he has more than once found the typhoid bacilli in 

 the juice that he has squeezed out of celery grown near Philadelphia. — 

 Annals of Hygiene. 



Experiments have recently been made to ascertain the destructive 

 power of gastric juice upon bacteria. After six hours Bacillus tuber- 

 culosis retained sulficient vitality to produce general tuberculosis. 

 After eighteen hours the microbes had either died or lost their viru- 

 lence. Typhoid bacteria died in two to three hours, and the bacilli 

 of cholera in two hours. Dilute hydrochloric acid produced similar 

 results, indicating that it is to the hydrochloric acid of the gastric juice 

 that its antiseptic properties are due. 



BIOLOGICAL NOTES. 



Bacteria in Hail-stones. — The yohns Hopkins Hospital Bulle- 

 tin for May, 1S90, records some observations by A. C. Abbott upon 

 the bacteria found in the interior of large hail-stones which fell during 

 the storm of April 36, 1890. Care was taken to exclude all organisms 

 except those brought down from the altitude where the hail was formed. 

 The number of organisms observed ranged from 400 to 700 to the 

 cubic centimetre. The majority represented only a single species, a 

 short, thin, oval bacillus ; though several other undeterminetl species 

 were observed. 



These observations suggest possibilities. Medical men are often 

 asked, with a sneer, to account for the origin of sporadic cases of a 

 disease well known to be contagious, scarlatina, for example, where 

 the source of infection is impossible to trace. 



A cyclone may have swept through an infected region ; clouds of dust 

 containing the bacillus of the disease in question may have been car- 

 ried to a height, borne along for hundreds of miles, encapsuled in hail- 

 stones or rain-drops, and brought again to earth in a location favorable 

 to their growth. 



Peach Blight on California Buckeye.— A fungus practically in- 

 distinguishable from the peach blight, Asconiyccs deformans^ has several 

 times within the past few years been observed on leaves and twigs of 

 the buckeye, ^^sculus Californica. Further observations are desira- 

 ble. — H. W. Harkness in Zoe^ May, i8go. 



