ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 4(0 



places, a bacillus almost completely resembling the potato bacillus on tbo 

 one band, and Scbeurlen's bacillus on the other. The same bacillus was 

 also found in tbe juice of a sarcoma of the mamma, a sarcoma of the 

 pericranium, and even in a neuroma of the vola manus. Moreover the 

 Scheurlen cancer bacillus (or a bacillus extremely like it) does not merely 

 appear in carcinomata, but in other neoplasms, and not only is it not 

 exclusively associated with carcinoma, but it is found in agar plate culti- 

 vations in connection with various other kinds of bacteria derived from 

 the cancer juice. Nor is the Scheurlen bacillus a constant concomitant 

 of cancer, for the author failed to find it in a cancer of the rectum, and 

 also in a case from the mamma, although submitted to the same procedure. 

 The author therefore concludes that there is no proof that the Scheurlen 

 bacillus is peculiar to cancer, and suspects that it is an immigrant from 

 the skin or mucous membrane. 



Spore-formation in the Bacillus of Glanders.* — Prof. P. Baum- 

 garten states that Dr. Eosenthal has made numerous experiments to 

 determine the question, previously unsolved, of endogenous spore-forma- 

 tion in glanders bacillus. Numerous experiments with cover-glass 

 preparations from somewhat old potato cultivations of this microbe have 

 shown the presence of spores, the appearances resembling those obtained 

 with anthrax bacillus. Neisser's method for staining spores (one hour's 

 staining in Ehrlich's fuchsin solution in a steam sterilizer at 100° C, or 

 at 150 D C. with dry heat, decolorizing in hydrochloric acid and alcohol, 

 and after-staining with methylin-blue) was adopted. The spores were 

 coloured a deep red, and the rest of the rodlet blue. The spores were for 

 the most part free, but sometimes within the bacilli. It must therefore be 

 considered as settled that glanders bacillus forms spores, but whether 

 always or under certain conditions only remains to be determined. 



Bacterio-purpurin.j — Dr. T. W. Engelmann, who in 1882 described 

 a red bacterium, B. photometricum,\ has recently examined this and other 

 red Schizomycetes obtained both from fresh and salt water. The forms 

 examined are known as B. photometricum, roseo-persicinum, rubescens, and 

 sulfuratum, Clathrocystis roseo-persicina, Monas Okeni, vinosa, and War- 

 mingii, Ophidomonas sanguined, Rhabdomonas rosea, and Spirillum violaceum. 

 Whether they are one or the same kind, they at any rate belong to the 

 sulphur bacteria which, in the presence of free hydrosulphuric acid, 

 become filled with sulphur granules and oxidize this sulphur to sulphuric 

 acid. All are coloured by a purplish-red pigment diffusely disseminated 

 in the protoplasm (bacterio-purpurin Eay Lankester). 



The recent experiments have confirmed the earlier ones as to the 

 behaviour of B. photometricum and the others to light, the peculiar 

 influence of which is not associated with the presence or absence of 

 sulphur, but with the presence of bacterio-purpurin, wherefore it is 

 proposed to distinguish these forms of " Purpuro-bacteria " from the 

 unpigmented sulphur-bacteria which are not influenced by light. 



From a series of experiments made with sun, gas, and electric light, 

 the spectra showed that there was an evident proportion between absorp- 

 tion and physiological effect, and that this, like the analogous chemical 

 process of carbon assimilation by chlorophyll, was brought about by 



* Ceutralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. Parasitenk., iii. (1888) p. 397. 



t Arch. f. d. Gesammt. Physiol. (Pfliiger), xlii. (1888) pp. 183-6. 



X See this Journal, 1883, p. 256. 



