718 REPORT — 1881. 



the spores germinated into exceedingly delicate bacilli, which on further cultivation 

 lengthened'lnto spore-bearing filaments. On inoculating rats with the milk con- 

 tainino- the spores death followed in from eighteen to twenty-four hours. The tissues 

 of these rats, especially in the region of the neck, were infiltrated with bacilli, which 

 on cultivation developed into spore-bearing filaments. Inoculation proved both bacilli 

 and spores to be as virulent as the original spores found in the milk. Confirmatory 

 evidence of the relation of the bacillus to the disease, and of the disease to the 

 bacillus was obtained by the examination of pus from an abscess situated near 

 the angle of the jaw of one of the sufferers. This pus contained spores and 

 bacilli similar to those found in, or developed from, the milk. When a rat was 

 inoculated with a minimal quantity of this pus, it suffered and died in the same 

 way as the rats which were infected with the milk. Further investigations proved 

 that the organisms had been added to the milk along with water. The water used 

 at the dairy previous to the epidemic passed through a large concrete cistern (provided 

 with a rough loose wooden cover) placed in a corner of the byre immediately over 

 the heads of several cows. The spores reached the byre along with the steamed hay 

 used as food. Once in the hjre, the spores could have bad little difficulty in enter- 

 ino- the water cistern, which was practically a part of the byre. How they reached 

 the tank in which the hay was steamed has not yet been discovered. 



Experiments, after the methods employed by Burdon Sanderson, Pasteur, 

 Greenfield and Biichner showed — (1) that this bacillus could not be converted 

 into the hay bacillus {B. suhtilis) ; (2) that the cultivations diminished in virulence 

 imtil they became quite innocuous; (3) that when the filaments were kept for a 

 time at a temperature which prevented the appearance of spores, the -^-irulence 

 became attenuated and ultimately disappeared. Fm'ther experiments may show 

 that the attenuated forms are capable of aff'ording protection from the active bacilli. 



In conclusion it was mentioned that the bacillus could be cultivated on the 

 fresh-cut surfaces of potatoes and in gelatine— the recent methods described by 

 Koch. 



4 On a little-hnown Cranial Difference between the Catarrhine and Platyr- 

 rhine Monkeys. By W. A. Foebes, B.A. 



Besides the well-known difference in the dentition, and in the form of the 

 external auditory meatus, in the monkeys of the old and new worlds, there is a 

 difference in the formation of the bony walls of the temporal fossa which in 

 nearly every case suffices to distinguish at once the skull of a member of one of 

 these o-roups from that of one of the other. As independently discovered by the 

 author ('P.Z.S.' 1880, p. 639), and Dr.Gustav Joseph (' Morphologisches Jahrbuch,' 

 i. pp. 453-465), in the Platyrrhine monkeys the parietal bone is prolonged 

 forwards to meet the malar, there being a weU-marked suture usually between the 

 two the frontal being in consequence altogether excluded, superficially at least, 

 from articulatino- -with the squamosal and alisphenoid. In the Catarrhine monkeys, 

 on the other hand, as also in man, the parietal does not reach the malar, there 

 beino- an isthmus between the two bones formed by the articulation of the frontal 

 with the alisphenoid. 



SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 3. 

 The Department did not meet. 



