532 REPORT—1883. 
charged with germs—always putrefied in from eighteen to thirty hours, or, if left 
at the ordinary temperature of the air, at various periods of from four days to 
three weeks, becoming opaque, muddy, and forming a scum—generally of bacilli, 
but often of bactertwm termo. It was found, if the laboratory was cleaned out 
and allowed to remain undisturbed for a week or two, that for some days fluids 
prepared in this way were perfectly and permanently sterilised, but after the 
accumulation and raising of dust by work carried on there, they invariably broke 
down. Fluids prepared in flasks with necks finely drawn out and hermetically 
closed by fusing the glass during boiling invariably remained pure. This did not 
seem necessarily to be due to want of air in the flask, for hay bacillus developed 
under these conditions when a few hay stalks were inclosed in the flask before 
boiling, the hay bacillus germs resisting the action of a boiling temperature for 
some time if protected by the hay fibres. But if the tip of these hermetically closed 
flasks was broken off, and the air allowed free entrance, though for so short a period 
as three seconds, putrefaction resulted. But the fact that the putrefaction did not 
arise from germs originally present in the cultivating fluids or in the flasks, or, 
being present there, from their withstanding the action of a boiling temperature, 
was more conclusively proved by preparing in flasks with necks about 3 inch 
diameter, bent downwards, so that, after boiling, the flame of a spirit lamp might 
be placed under the mouth, and allowed to burn around and up the neck for 
about 1 inch, while the flask cooled. In such cases (a small wool plug being after- 
wards inserted in the mouth), or if the neck was bent up and down several times 
and simply left open, the fluid invariably remained pure in the incubator for any 
length of time. The wool was not likely to be at fault, for, besides its being car- 
bolised, if the necks thus bent down were plugged in the ordinary way, the in- 
rushing air not being calcined, the fluids in them also putrefied, though it was 
probable that any germs present in the wool, and not killed by being steamed, 
could not fall into the fluid. 
Professor Tyndall’s plan of discontinuous boiling was employed, the fluids being 
boiled three to nine times at intervals of twelve hours, but with no better result 
than in the ordinary cases, putrefaction occurring about twenty hours after the last 
boiling. If water is sprayed, or a little poured over the wool-plugged flask during 
cooling, the strong indraught of air to fill the vacuum caused by the boiling draws 
in the fluid especially quickly between the compressed plug and the sides of the 
flask’s neck. It was proved that germs in this fluid could enter with it, and, if so, 
why not germs in the air? 
Of six flasks, however, prepared in a pure atmosphere and perfectly sterilised, 
three only, on reboiling in a contaminated atmosphere, became foul. 
The author thinks his observations throw some doubt on the sufficiency of wool 
plugs as filtering agents where a strong current of air is passing through them, as 
to fill a vacuum in flasks, though they seem to be perfectly reliable in cases of 
ordinary slight and slow changes of temperature, but he thinks further observations 
necessary to finally settle the point. 
8. On Cattle Disease in South America. By Dr. Roy. 
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22. 
The following Papers were read :— 
1. On the oceurrence of Chlorophyll in Animals. 
By Dr. C. A. MacMounn, M.D., B.A., F.C.S8. 
In determining the presence of chlorophyll in an animal observers have to rely 
on certain microscopic, physiological, and spectroscopic proofs, which, as Professor — 
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