ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. G09 



colouring the gelatinous capsule are (at present, at any rate) insuffi- 

 cient in the case of the pneumococcus of the horse. 



Microbe of Rabies. — Mr. G. F. Dowdeswell considers that he 

 has found the microbe which appears clearly to constitute the virus 

 of this disease. It is a micrococcus, not very minute, and of the 

 usual form. It stains, however, with some difficulty ; and this 

 accounts for its having hitherto escaped observation. In the cases of 

 dogs which he has as yet examined, its principal seat is evidently 

 the central canal of the spinal cord and medulla oblongata ; thence it 

 pervades the other tissues of the central nervous system, occurring 

 (sometimes in vast masses) around the walls of the blood-vessels, and 

 in some cases within the vessels amongst the red blood-corpuscles. 

 He found it in the cortex of the hemispheres, but in very small 

 numbers, and, so far, only in the perivascular and pericellular lymph 

 spaces. In the cerebellum it was not found at all, nor in the salivary 

 glands. It docs not stain by hematoxylin, either with or without 

 a mordant, as asserted by Prof. Fol. Neither does it occur within 

 the nerve-fibres, as he states ; and lastly, it is fully three times the 

 dimensions which he gives. It docs not occur in the same situation, 

 treated by the same methods, in normal animals. In the one case 

 of a rabid dog, which Mr. Dowdeswell had examined to control his 

 previous observations, the tissues were placed in alcohol so shortly 

 after death as to preclude the possibility of the occurrence of septic 

 organisms. In addition to which, all saprophytes, as far as yet 

 observed, stain very readily with the usual anilin dyes, which this 

 microbe does not. 



Rabies.* — Prof. H. Fol has, by means of a second culture of his 

 microbe of rabies, succeeded in inducing madness in the animals 

 under experiment. He has sent cerebral matter of a rat thus inocu- 

 lated to Pasteur, who has confirmed the statement that madness is 

 transmitted to animals inoculated with it. Latterly Fol has experi- 

 mented on the dog, in which the symptoms are more characteristic. 

 The microbe shows itself under a constant form. 



TLe best way of obtaining a culture is to grind down the cerebellum 

 and salivary glands with carbonate and phosphate of potash, then to 

 filter through a " Chamberland bougie." The most potent rabies virus 

 is in the brain and spinal cord ; it is less so in the salivary glands, and 

 in the blood is completely absent. The propagation, then, is not carried 

 on by the blood, but is transferred by nerves and by lymphatic vessels. 



Huppe's Methods for the Study of Bacteria.f— Dr. F. Hiippe's 

 exhaustive work on this subject commences with a brief statement 

 of the various classes of bacteria, followed by the principles on 

 which sterilization depends, together with the various methods, in- 

 cluding that of discontinuous or intermittent sterilization. The 

 various forms of bacteria are next described, with the method of 



* Arch. Sci. Phys. et Nat., xv. (1886) pp. 414-5. 



t Hiippe, F., ' Die Methoden der Bakterien-Forschung,' 3rd ed., 244 pp , 

 40 figs, and 2 pis. (8vo, Wiesbaden, 1886.) 



