May 24, 1S83] 



NA TURE 



77 



mals by means of these organisms. It may be that 

 the atmosphere kills these bacteria, it may be that the 

 animals experimented upon were not liable to catch the 

 disease ; at all events it would seem that no pathogenetic 

 bacteria are to be found in the air. This is a very im- 

 portant conclusion, but it is not yet sufficiently supported 

 by facts. How could scarlet fever, measles, and other 

 diseases be brought by a physician from a patient to a 

 healthy person if the bacteria could not resist the action 

 of the air for some time ? 



Other bacteria present a more elongated shape : they 

 are called baciiries en batonnets. They generally move 

 about, sometimes very slowly, sometimes with great 

 rapidity, in various manners, when they are allowed to re- 

 main in a suitable liquid. M. Miquel has remarked that 

 one of these bacteria converts sulphur into hydrosulphuric 

 acid in a very energetic minner ; together with another 

 similar bacterium it is the principal agent that converts 

 urine into sulphuret of ammonia. M. Miquel cannot 

 say exactly as to the presence of pathogenetic bacteria in 

 the atmosphere, nor especially as to their precise nature 

 and modus faciendi. 



Bacilli are also to be found in the atmosphere ; they 

 may be long or short ; the less they move about the 

 longer they become. One of these bacilli resembles very 

 much the Bacillus amylobacter (van Tieghem). Another 

 one seems pathogenetic ; it brings on, in animals, a 

 phlegmon that generally terminates — as is the custom of 

 most phlegmons — in suppuration. Of course many other 

 pathogenetic bacilli perhaps exist in the atmosphere, but 

 that question has not been specially discussed by M. 

 Miquel. He shows very well how considerable an influ- 

 ence the rainfall exerts on the number of the bacteria 

 contained in the air. Temperature has little to do with 

 this as diagrams show ; rain on the contrary has a great 

 effect. As soon as the weather becomes dry the number 

 of the bacteria increases ; when it is rainy this number 

 falls rapidly. This result is one of the most important 

 among those M. Miquel has attained, inasmuch as this 

 savant shows that rainy periods are those during which 

 the bacteria multiply. 



If the number of these organisms is consider- 

 able in the air we breathe every day, one thing 

 must however console us in some degree. If these 

 bacteria are murderous, they are somewhat like the 

 coffee ; they kill very slowly in most cases. Many 

 of them must each day come into our lungs and body, 

 and yet we feel none the worse for it generally. This 

 does not mean that they are not dangerous ; it means 

 only that they are not always able to act a dangerous 

 part. For what reason, we know not yet. Typhoid fever, 

 cholera, yellow fever, measles, scarlet fever, and a great 

 many other diseases are contagious ; but all persons who 

 live with patients suffering from either of these diseases do 

 not catch them. Most doctors and medical students do 

 not catch any contagious disease in the hospitals, and yet 

 they doubt not the nature and danger of these diseases. 



Whatever opinion one may entertain as to the Microbe 

 Theory, it must be admitted that M. Miquel's book 

 is exceedingly useful and well arranged. M. Miquel 

 understands the matter thoroughly, and his book will 

 certainly be much read abroad, as it has been in France. 



Henry de Varigny 



ANIMAL TECHAOLOG V 



Animal Technology as Applied to the Domestic Cat. An 

 Introduction to Human, Veterinary, and Comparath e 

 Anatomy. By Burt G. Wilder, B.S., M.D., and Simon 

 H. Gage, B.S. (New York and Chicago : A. S. Barnes 

 and Co., 1882.) 



MESSRS. BURT WILDER AND GAGE are not 

 the first anatomists to employ the domestic cat as 

 an introduction to the study of vertebrate anatomy. In 

 1881 Mr. St. George Mivart published an elaborate 

 treatise on the Cat, as a type for examination and com- 

 parison with other vertebrates; and as far back as 1845 

 M. Straus- Durckheim issued his well-known work in the 

 French language on this animal. 



The book now before us differs however in its scope 

 and mode of treatment from its English predecessor. It 

 is not like Mr. Mivart's, a systemaiic treatise on the 

 anatomy of the cat, both macroscopic and microscopic, 

 with chapters on its development, psychology, specific 

 forms, geographical distribution, &c. But it is a practical 

 treatise written with the object of instructing the student 

 in the methods of dissecting and displaying the structure 

 of this animal. 



As preliminary to the anatomical description, the 

 authors have written some short chapters on the instru- 

 ments employed in dissecting, the modes of using them, 

 the methods of injecting, and the preparation and preser- 

 vation of anatomical specimens, so as to justify the title 

 of Anatomical Technology given to the book. We would 

 especially direct attention to the sections on the macera- 

 tion of bones and the preparation of skeletons as furnish- 

 ing the young anatomist with useful hints on these 

 subjects. 



Those who are familiar with the papers on Anatomical 

 Nomenclature by Prof. Wilder in the American Journal 

 Science, and elsewhere, will not be surprised to find that 

 he has in this work again enunciated his views on Ter- 

 minology, and adopted many but little used, as well as 

 new terms in his descriptions. There can be no doubt 

 that the terms used in anatomical description in many 

 instances would be improved by being altered. No one 

 who is engaged in the comparative study of the anatomy 

 of the human body, with that of other vertebrates, but 

 must constantly feel a difficulty in the use of the terms 

 employed to express position. He has ever to keep in 

 mind that a surface which is superior in man is anterior 

 in any other vertebrate, and that a surface which is 

 posterior in man is superior in vertebrates generally. 

 Hence such terms as dorsal and ventral, cephalic and 

 caudal, are much to be preferred to express corresponding 

 surfaces throughout the vertebrata, whatever may be their 

 direction, than posterior, anterior, inferior, superior. If 

 indeed the recommendations made by the Edinburgh 

 anatomist, Dr. Barclay, in the early part of this century, 

 had been attended to, then anatomical description would 

 by this time have been on a much more satisfactory basis 

 than it is. The delay and difficulty in effecting the 

 necessary reforms are largely due to the works on human 

 anatomy having been for the most part written by men, 

 who are specialists in that department only, and have not 

 had a wide and philosophical training in the whole sub. 

 ject. The introduction, however, of biological study into 



