234 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



legnieas, while Pythium and Cystopus are the most remote from 

 them. 



Lagenidium, Myzocytium, Ancylisles Pfitz., and similar forms come 

 very near to Pythium, but are distinguished by their production of 

 oospores or zygospores, and may be comprehended for the present 

 under Pfitzer's name Ancylistefe. BMpidmm and Monohlepharis are 

 also nearly related to the Peronosporea^ and Saprolegniese ; the 

 position of the former is uncertain, its mode of fecundation not being 

 at present accurately known ; while the latter genus must form by 

 itself the separate group of Monohlepharidece. 



Fungi in Pharmaceutical Solutions.* — 0. Binz states that the 

 occasional presence of the lower fungi in pharmaceutical solutions is 

 due to the presence of free sulphuric acid, which furnishes the sulphur 

 without which the albuminoids of the fungi in question could not be 

 formed. They withdraw from the sulphuric acid first the oxygen and 

 then the sulphur. 



Vegetable Organisms in Human Excrements.! — H. Nothnagel 

 describes the microscopic organisms found in upwards of 800 specimens 

 of human excrements. 



Some form or other of bacteria was always found whether the 

 excrements were normal or pathological. The most abundant were 

 spheerobacteria or micrococci, and especially Bacterium termo, and 

 these were usually present in enormous quantities ; when thin and 

 watery usually in the rod form, when firmer usually in the globular 

 form. All the forms are coloured yellow or yellowish-brown by 

 iodine. Bacillus subtilis was also usually found ; as also Saccharomyces, 

 ■ especially in the excrement of infantile diarrhoea ; the most common 

 form resembled S. elUpsoideus. 



In addition to these, other forms were found which had not hitherto 

 been recognized in the intestines, distinguished by being coloured blue 

 by iodine. The largest of these appeared identical with Prazmowski's 

 Clostridium hutyricum, the abundance of which was in proportion to the 

 amount of vegetable remains in the excrements. Another smaller 

 form was apparently either a Clostridium or Hansen's Mycoderma 

 Pasteurianum. 



Saccharomyces apiculatus.| — The first part of E. C. Hansen's re- 

 searches on the physiology and morphology of alcoholic ferments is occu- 

 pied with the life-history of Saccharomyces apiculatus, with the special 

 object of determining in what form it exists in the periods inter- 

 vening between its periodical appearances on ripe fruits, goose- 

 berries, cherries, plums, &c., in the summer. The species presents 

 special facilities for this purpose, in consequence of its specific 

 characters being more distinctly marked than those of any other 

 ferment. 



Hansen affirms that S. apiculatus is found in the summer on ripe 



* Wiener Medicinische Presse, 1880. See Bot. Centralbl., viii. (1881) p. 174. 

 t Zeitsch. fur klin. Med., 1881 (1 pi.). 



X Meddel. fra Carlsberg Labor., 1881, pp. 159-84 (3 pis.). See Bot. Centralbl., 

 viii. (1881) p. 6. 



