Feb. 12, [885] 



NA TURE 



355 



(lend of cholera. The sooner after death the examination is 

 made, the fewer'comma bacilli are found in the mucus (lakes; 

 even in typical rapidly fatal cases the mucus Hake- taken from 

 ileum and examined soon after death (from between fourteen 

 minutes and an hour or an hour and a half) contain the comma 

 bacilli only very sparingly indeed, and not to the exclusion of 

 other bacteria. Our investigations do not bear out Koch's state- 

 ment as to the lower part of the ileum being in acute typical 

 cases of cholera almost "a pure cultivation of comma bacilli. " 

 In not one of the many post-mortem examinations of typical 

 have we found such a state. 



4. The mucous membrane of the ileum of typical rapidly fatal 

 cases, if examined soon after death, does not contain in any part 



ol a comma bacillus or any other bacteria, not even in 

 the superficial loosened epithelium. 



If the post-mortem examination is sufficiently delayed, comma 



bacilla and other bacteria may be found penetrating into the 



; - membrane. 



The theory of Koch's as to the comma bacilli present in the 



a embrane secreting a chemical poison inducing the 



1 tnnot, therefore, be correct. 



5. Neither the blood nor any other tissue contain- comma 

 bacilli or any other micro-organisms of known character. 



6. The behaviour of the comma bacilli in artificial media is 

 not such as to justify their being considered as specific. They 

 go.w well in alkaline and neutral media, are not killed by acid-. 

 and their mode of growth in gelatine mixture- is not more 

 peculiar than that of otl tive bacteria; they show 

 marked differences when grown in different media, but not more 

 so than the ordinary putrefactive bacteria when compared in their 

 growth with one another. 



comma bacilli'' occur in other 

 5, in the mouths of healthy persons, and, as 

 shown recently, even in some common articles of food. 



8. I he experiments performed by Koch and other- on animals 



do not in the least prove that the comma bacilli are capable of 



01 any other disease. The results obtained 



: ed in a manner oppose ! 1 1 thai 



v Koch and others. 



irect evideno t show that the water contam- 



ii choleraic evacuation-, and containing, of course, the 



comma bacilli, when used for domestic purposes, including 



drinking, by a large number of persons, did not produce 



10. The mucus flakes taken from the small intestine of a 

 typical rapidly fatal case of cholera contain numerous mucus 



filled wilh peculiar minute straight bacilli ; in this 

 state they are found when the examination i- made very soon 

 after death ; soon, however, the mucus corpuscles swell up and 

 disintegrate, and then their bacilli become free. 



11 bacilli are never missed in the mucus flakes. They 

 are only one-third or one-fourth the length of the comma bacilli, 

 and about half their thickness. They are non-mobile ; they 



in Agar- Agar jelly, but -how in their modes of growth 

 no peculiarity by which they could be considered as specific. 



wn on the free surface if the nourishing material they 

 f n in spi 11 



11. li ;e imall bacilli 1 present in the blood, in the 

 mucous membrane of the intestine, or in any other tissue. 



12. Experiments made with these small bacilli on animals 

 produce 



13. Since my return to London I have ascertained thai the 

 comma bacilli o1 cholera show two distinct modes of division, 

 one the 1. 1 Se division, and a second one of 

 division in length. When growing in Agar-Agar jelly at the 

 ordinary temperature of the room, after some days the bacilli 



wing to the appearance in their protoplasm of one or 

 more vacuoles ; as these vacuoles increase, 50 the comma bai i!b 



lually change lln-f intoplano-convex, then it 

 bi-convex, and ultimately into circular corpuscles. The longer 

 the original comma bacillus, the larger the final circle. These 

 circular organisms are mobile just as the comma bacilli, and bj 

 disintegration of the protopla-m at two opposite paints two 

 perfect more or les- semicircular conma bacilli a 

 t bowing (he comma bacilli in Agar Agar jelly kept at higher 

 temperatures (30-40* C), the comma bacilli nraltipl) 

 ■ ion only, bul 



] temperature of the room, they 

 again gradually change into circular organisms, which, by li 11 in 

 [iameter of the circle, form two new comma bacilli. 



Linnean Society, February 5. — Mr. Frank Crisp, LL.B., 

 Vice-President and Treasurer, in the chair. — Mr. John Hodgkin 

 was elected a Fellow of the Society. — A paper was read " On 

 the Arbaciadoe, Gray. Part I, the Morphology of the Test in 

 the genera Calopleurus and Arbacia," by Prof. P. Martin Duncan 

 and W. Percy Sladen. The species of recent and fossil 

 Calopleurus and the recent forms of Arbacia examined present 

 some structural details of both primary and secondary cla-sifi- 

 catory importance, which have hitherto been neglected and not 

 recorded. The ambulacral plates differ from those of all other 

 Echinoidea in the arrangement of the triplets, there being a 

 central primary plate with an adoral and an aboral demi-plate. 

 It is shown that there are no additional plates near the peristome 

 in the species of Arbacia. The s'ructureof the sutures, especially 

 of the median inter-radials, is a modification of the dowelling 

 which ha- been described in Temnopleurus by one of the authors. 

 The double-optic pore noticed by Loven occurs in the fossil 

 species of Calopleurus, and in C. Maillardi, a recent species. 

 The authors compare the different forms, and exclude Arbacia 

 nigra from the genus Arbacia. The next part will deal with the 

 classification. — Then followed a paper on Burmese Desmids, by 

 Mi. W. Joshua. The specimens were forwarded by Dr. Romanis, 

 F. L. S., of Rangoon, and got chiefly from the leaves of Pistia 

 straiiotes in a tank some twenty-six miles from the mouth of the 

 River Irrawaddy. Of 186 species in sixteen genera hitherto 

 observed, loo have their representatives in Europe. Altogether 

 some forty supposed new species are described by the author, 

 besides several new varie'ies and a li-t of others previously 

 given. — Mr. W. F. Kirby read a paper on the em- 

 ployment of the names proposed for genera of Orthoptera 

 previously to 1840. In this communication the author shows 

 the application of every name proposed from the time of Linne 

 to the publication of Serville's " Hi toire nalurelle des Insectes 

 Orthopteres," and there is appended a full bibliography of the 

 subject. 



Zoological Society. February 3. — Prof. W. II. Flower, 

 LL.D., F.R.S., President, in the chair. — The Secretary ex- 

 hibited a specimen of a rare South American Lizard {Hetero- 

 dacfylm imbricatus), presented to the Society by Mr. G. Lennon 

 Hunt : and a specimen of a rare Beetle, of the family Buprest- 

 idae, from Beloochistan {Jalodis ffinclii). — A letter was read 

 from Dr. George Bennett, F.Z.S., of Sydney, containing re- 

 marks on the Tree-Kangaroo of Queensland (Dendrolagus linn- 

 liol/zi), lately described in the Society's Proceedings. — A series 

 of specimens of Lepidopterous insects, which had been bred in 

 the insect-house in the Society's Gardens during the past season, 

 was laid on the table. —A communication was read from M. 

 Tacznnowski and Count Berlepsch, containing an account of the 

 thiid collection of birds obtained by M. Stolzmann in Ecuador. 

 The collection contained examples of 289 species, of which ten 

 were new to science. — Lieut.-Col. C. Swinhoe read the first of 

 a series of papers on the Lepidoptera of Bombay and the Dec- 

 can. The present communication contained an account of the 

 Rhopalocera, and gave the results of two years' daily collecting. 

 — A communication was read from Mr. Robt. Collett, C.M.Z.S., 

 giving an account of Echidna acanthion, a new species of Spiny 

 Ant-eater lately discovered in Northern Queensland. — A com- 

 munication was read from Mr. Jean Stolzmann, containing the 

 description of a new Rodent, belonging to the genus Ccelogeny , 

 from Ecuador, proposed to be called Calogenys tacmnowskii. 



Paris 

 Academy of Sciences, February 2. — M. Bouley, Presi- 

 dent, in the chair. — The death of M. Dupuy de Lome, member 

 of the Section for Geography and Navigation, who died on 

 February 1. was announced by the Secretary. — On the mechani- 

 cal principles determining the rotation of surfaces on a fixed 

 surface, by M. H. Resal. — Remarks on the cultivation of the 

 phylloxera in tubes, in reply to M. Balbiani's objections to the 

 present practice of destroying the winter eggs of this para ite, 

 by M. P. de Lafitte. — On a plane representation of certain 

 dynamic problems respecting the displaces ents of a figure of 

 invariable form subjected to four conditions, by M. A. Mann- 

 heim — Description of a selenium actino ' for the 

 purpose of measuring the relative intensity of the Iumin 

 rays a above the horizon, by M. II. Morize. 

 — On a new preparation of the trifiuoride of phosphorus, and on 

 the analysis of this g.as, by M. 11. Moissa 1 'n lysis of the 

 green ferrocyanides or glaucoferrocyanida-, by MM A I ird 



