238 
NATURE 
[JANUARY 7, 1897 
nearest congeners, at present existing. It is also incorrect 
to assert that only in man, a few American monkeys, and 
the anthropoid apes, does the hair slope towards the elbow. 
This Human Type is seen in the corresponding area of this 
segment of the anterior extremity of almost all hairy mammals, 
excepting most of the Ungulate types, and those with woolly 
hair. It is found very constantly in Carnivores, especially 
those which frequently rest in a ‘‘couchant” attitude, in 
which the head is held erect, the fore-limbs planted in front of 
the body, and the extensor surface of this limb-segment resting 
flat on the ground, also in certain other positions of rest; and 
it can be seen in nearly all wild Carnivores and domestic cats 
and dogs. In those Carnivores which assume this attitude the 
posterior limbs adopt a much more variable ‘‘ pose,” and here 
there is no constant form of hair-slope. The backward curl of 
hair on this narrow area of the fore-arm in man, certain monkeys, 
and many other hairy mammals, seems to be due to a mechanical 
force, slowly acting downwards and forwards, which makes for 
this direction of hair-slope. In all these three classes it is 
obvious that such pressure is frequent. This explanation of an 
inherited character, maintained by a simple physical cause, 
meets the case far better, I submit, than any supposed tracing 
out of ancestral vestiges. WALTER KIpD. 
TS ANIMAL LIFE POSSIBLE IN THE 
ABSENCE OF BACTERIA ? 
SOME ten years ago Pasteur, in one of those ‘‘causeries du 
laboratoire” which those who were privileged to take part 
in will never forget, discussed with the young scientific men 
around him the interest which would attach to the nourishment 
of an animal from its earliest existence with sterilised food under 
conditions which would ensure the absence of all microbial life. 
“* Sans vouloir rien affirmer,” he added, ‘‘je ne cache pas que 
j entreprendrais cette étude, si j’en avais le temps, avec la pensée 
préconcue que la vie dans ses conditions deviendrait impossible. 
. Que le résultat soit positif et confirme la vue préconcue que 
je mets en avant ou quwil soit négatif et méme en sens inverse, 
c’est-A-dire que la vie soit plus facile et plus active, il y aurait un 
grand intérét a tenter l’expeérience.” 
To decide this question Messrs. George Nuttall and H. Thier- 
felder have carried out elaborate experiments in the Hygienic 
Institute of the Berlin University with young guinea-pigs re- 
moved from the mother by means of the Caesarean opera- 
tion, Every conceivable precaution was taken to prevent all 
access of bacterial life. The young guinea-pig was placed in a 
sterilised chamber, supplied with sterilised air, and it was fed 
exclusively upon sterilised milk. It had to be supplied with 
food every hour, day and night, a process which so exhausted 
the investigators that at the end of eight days, when it had con- 
sumed 330 cubic centimetres of milk, and to all appearances was 
in perfect health and spirits, it was killed. 
A microscopic examination of the contents of the alimentary 
canal revealed no bacteria whatever ; zerobic and anzrobic cul- 
tures in various media were further made of the intestinal con- 
tents and of the excreta, but in every case the culture tubes re- 
mained sterile, not a single colony made its appearance. 
Messrs. Nuttall and Thierfelder claim by these experiments to 
have proved conclusively that the presence of bacteria in the 
alimentary canal is not essential to vital processes, at any rate in 
the case of guinea-pigs ; and they consider themselves justified 
in assuming that other animals, and also human beings, could 
similarly exist in the absence of bacterial life, as long as the 
food supplied is purely animal in character. Whether the con- 
ditions would be altered by the addition of vegetab/e food to-the 
diet, they next endeavoured to determine. In this series of ex- 
periments the food selected was so-called ‘* English” biscuits 
containing about 7 per cent. nitrogenous material, 9 per cent. 
fat, 17 per cent. sugar, 58 per cent. of other non-nitrogenous 
matters, and o°2 per cent. cellulose ; these, together with the 
milk employed, were sterilised before use. The same rigorous 
precautions characterised these experiments as the previous 
ones; more animals were, however, secured, and they were 
allowed to live longer. The weight of the animals was this 
time carefully noted, and during the ten days, during which the 
experiment lasted, one animal gained 23 grammes and another 
Ir grammes. This calculation could only be an approximate 
one, as the experimental animals were not weighed when 
originally removed from the mother, and their initial weight was 
NO. 1419, VOL. 55] 
only arrived at by weighing the other guinea-pigs which were re- 
moved at the same time, but not experimented upon. Thus in the 
case of vegetable substances bacterial life is apparently also not 
essential for carrying on digestive processes. The authors made 
also as careful an examination as was possible with the limited 
amount of material at their disposal, of the urine, and state that 
aromatic oxyacids were undoubtedly present. This result they 
regard as confirmatory of E. Baumann’s assertion that aromatic 
oxyacids may be elaborated independently of intestinal decom- 
position. To this point they intend, however, to return later ; 
at present further investigations are in progress with fowls, and 
the results will be awaited with the greatest interest, while im- 
mense credit is due to the authors for the ingenuity of the 
methods they have devised, and the self-sacrificing laboriousness 
with which they have conducted the experiments. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
EDINBURGH. 
Royal Society, Dec. 21, 1896.—Lord Kelvin in the chair.— 
The first paper, on atomic configurations in molecules of gases 
according to Boscovich, was by the President himself. At the 
outset Lord Kelvin confessed that the problem was quite beyond 
him, and he only desired to throw out some suggestions. 
Boscovich’s theory would quite well explain the atomic con- 
figuration of a gas if we could only apply it. In a monatomic 
gas the problem was fairly easy, collision between molecules 
leading to change in direction, either backwards on the original 
path, or at an angle, according as the impact was direct or 
oblique. For a diatomic gas we must imagine a ‘‘ pair of some- 
things” held together by a mutual force which knocked about 
like one. He thought he could see why a diatomic gas should 
become monatomic when its temperature was sufficiently raised. 
But he could not yet understand why, when the process was’ 
reversed, molecules should combine in quartettes rather than in 
pairs, or triplets, and he illustrated his conjectures by means of 
models. He showed by means of these how, for example, the 
mutual repulsion between the H’s might prevent O from com- 
bining with any more than two, and hence we did not have 
H,0. And he explained, similarly, how O, was unstable, as 
the octohedral arrangement of the atoms (taking“O = O,) was 
easily-broken up. But the whole subject was one of tremendous 
difficulty.—In an abstract from a paper on the cecal fossee, Dr. 
Richard Berry pointed out that the periczecal folds and the 
resulting fossee were primary in origin, and vascular in evolution. 
He strongly dissented from Treves’ view that the meso-appendix 
is a substituted mesentery, maintaining that the ilio-colic and 
ilio-czecal folds were the true cxcal mesenteries, primary and 
subsidiary respectively, the meso-appendix being the true 
appendicular mesentery. Arguing from this and. other facts 
which he adduced, Dr. Berry stated that it would almost appear 
as though the appendix were gradually replacing the caecum in 
functional activity. Passing on to the retro-czecal fosse, he 
pointed out the inaccuracy of the term retro-czecal as applied to 
these fossze, suggesting for them the name retro-colic as being 
more accurate and more scientific. He proceeded to show that 
these fossz were secondary in origin and depended for that 
origin upon the secondary coalescence, sometimes wanting, ot 
the colon, czecum, and mesentery, to the posterior abdominal 
wall. In this respect Dr. Berry differed from almost every 
British author. He pointed out the variability of these fossa in 
number and position, and strongly emphasised their importance 
to the surgeon in view of the prevalence of appendicitis and the 
part which these fossze, according to the author, play in the 
etiology of that disease.—Dr. T. H1. Milroy read a paper dealing 
with research into the nature of the nucleins and paranucleins 
of the animal cell. During the last few years much attention 
has been paid to two great classes of proteids intimately con- 
nected with the life of the cell, viz. the nucleins and paranucleins. 
The former class hag been rather vaguely defined as including 
proteids which have only two points in common—a high per- 
centage of phosphorus in organic combination, and a marked 
resistance to the action of the gastric secretion. The natural 
nucleins examined were those of the thymus gland of calves, 
of the red blood-corpuscles of birds, and of the pancreas of the 
ox ; and these were found to agree in almost every particular 
with artificial syntonin-nuclein. That is, they were only slowly 
dissolved, not decomposed by the gastric juice (with the 
exception of the pancreas nuclein), while trypsin and sodium 
re 
