January 30, 1891.] 



SCIENCE. 



vestigations are those of bacterial poisons, which he made in com- 

 mon with Ludwig Brieger. They led to the discovery of 

 toxalbumin, and to that above mentioned. His other discoveries 

 are those concerning the bacterial contents of ice, the cultivation 

 of bacteria which tlarive without air, the occurrence of micro- 

 organisms in the various layers of the soil, etc. 



Dr. Kitasato. a Japanese by birth, has lived in Germany for 

 five years, and has occupied himself almost all the time with 

 bacteriological studies in the Hygienic Institute. The biology of 

 the cholera bacillus has been the theme of many of his researches. 

 He has investigated its beliavior in milk and in fseces, and its re- 

 lations to other pathogenic and non- pathogenic bacteria in 

 nutritive solutions. He has also gone deeply into the study of the 

 tetanus germs, and has now published the results of his investi- 

 gations in bis article on immunity. One of his chief discoveries 

 is that of the musk fungus. 



Dr. Ernst Behring, who has shown, in conjunction with Dr. 

 Kitasato. how immunity against diphtheria and tetanus is conferred 

 on animals, is an army surgeon, and has been working as an as- 

 sistant for about a year and a half past in the Hygienic Institute. 

 Among his first studies after he became a surgeon, ten years ago, 

 was the manner in which antiseptic remedies for wounds, es- 

 pecially iodoform, act, and he made a special study of the symp- 

 toms of iodoform poisoning. He afterward tested the antiseptic 

 value of silver solutions, creoline, and other chemicals. Cadav- 

 erine, the etiology of anthrax, and the immunity of rats, are 

 also among the themes to which he has devoted special attention, 

 but diphtheria has recently been his exclusive study. 



HEALTH MATTERS. 



Action of Living Blood on Bacteria. 



Professor Bonome has recorded the results of his researches on 

 the following points : whether physiological alterations in the blood 

 play any part in modifying its destructive action on bacteria ; 

 whether it is possible to produce alterations in the composition of 

 the blood of such a nature that the normal inimical action against 

 bacteria may be altered ; and whether it is possible to derive any 

 reliable data that wdl throw light on the subject of immunity. As 

 a result of his experiments, he comes to the conclusion that sta- 

 phylococci introduced directly into the blood are destroyed in 

 from ten to twenty-hve minutes, more rapidly in the blood of 

 young rabbits than in older animals of the same species (B?'i<is/i. 

 Medical Journal). He then, by injecting the poison obtamed 

 from the pus of an old empyema or a chronic abscess in small 

 quantities into healthy rabbits, proved that the bacteria-destroying 

 activity of the blood is increased, tlie organisms used being 

 staphylococcus aureus, albus, and citreus. He holds, however, 

 that the introduction of such poison does not appear to exert any 

 influence upon the similar activity of the fixed tissues. Poison 

 from acute pus obtained in a similar manner appeal's to exert not 

 the slightest influence on the destructive action of the blood ; 

 while, owing to its effect upon the tissue-elements, it diminishes 

 their power of destroying such organisms as the staphylococci 

 above mentioned. Similar poison from pyogenic staphylococcus 

 culture does not increase this destructive power of the blood 

 against the above-mentioned organisms ; and any immunity that 

 is produced depends, not on the rapidity and certainty with 

 which the blood destroys the organisms introduced into its 

 stream, but raiher upon a greater resistance which the tissue- 

 elements exert against the bacteria jjoison, when they have 

 become accustomed to the action of the poison by remaining in 

 contact with the metabolic products of the same bacteria. He 

 also gives experiments to show that water injected into the veins 

 can diminish this destructive activity of the blood to a certain ex- 

 tent, but never completely ; for although the animals so injected, 

 and control animals, died about the same time, those in which 

 water had been injected usually showed small purulent deposits 

 in the kidneys and myocardium, and more or less fatty degener- 

 ation of the epithelium of the kidneys : so that he considers, that, 

 in addition to this slight diminution in the destructive activity 

 of the blood, there is some alteration of the protoplasm of the 



cells, probably due to the ab,sence of salts and the cutting-ofE of 

 the full oxygen supply by the presence of water, by which their 

 resistance is considerably diminished in certain areas, and owing 

 to which they are more readily attacked by the injected staphy- 

 lococci. 



Amount of Sugar in Blood in Disease. 



Dr N. P. Trinkler recently read, before the KharkofI Medical 

 Society, a paper on the "Diagnostic Significance of the Quantity 

 of Sugar and Reducing Substances in the Blood," in which he de- 

 tailed a number of ob.servations he had carried out on patients in 

 Professor Grube's surgical clinic, the majority of whom were suf- 

 fering from cancer ( The Lancet). The blood of some, as described 

 in the Medical Record of Jan. 3, was taken for examination dur- 

 ing an operation, that of the rest being only obtained after death. 

 The examination was in all cases made by means of two processes, 

 — that of Fehling and Soxhlet, and that of Knapp (Knapp's solu- 

 tion consists of cyanide of mercury dissolved in caustic alkali), — 

 the mean of the two results being taken. He found that the 

 blood during life always contains less sugar than after death, and 

 that that of persons suffering from cancer contains a larger pro- 

 portion of sugar and reducing substances than that of healthy 

 persons, or of persons suffering from other diseases. Affections of 

 internal organs appeared to be accompanied by a greater percen- 

 tage of sugar in the blood than diseases of the skin or of external 

 parts. The degree of emaciation produced by cancer did not 

 seem to have any direct effect upon the quantity of sugar in the 

 blood. There did not seem to be any real correspondence between 

 the amounts of sugar and other reducing substances : the sugar 

 was much more constant in its amount, the quantity of the other 

 reducing substances being liable to very considerable variations. 

 In the observations made on various diseased conditions, the fol- 

 lowing were the amounts of sugar found: cancer, 0.1678 per 

 cent to 0.3037 per cent ; typhoid-fever, 0.09.50 per cent ; pneumonia, 

 0,0943 percent; dj'sentery, 0.0838 per cent; organic diseases of the 

 heart, 0,0737 percent; peritonitis, 0.701 percent; phthisis, 0.0653 

 per cent; syphilis, 0.0553 per cent; nephritis, 0.0489 per cent; 

 haematuria, 0,0375 per cent. 



A Surgical Use for Ants. 



Ants have very powerful jaws, considering the size of their 

 bodies, and therefore their method of fighting is by biting. 

 They will bite one another, and hold on with a wonderful grip of 

 the jaws, even after their legs have been bitten off by other ants. 

 Sometimes six or eight ants will be clinging with a death-grip to 

 one another, making a peculiar spectacle, some with a leg gone, 

 and some' with half the body gone. One singular fact is, as we 

 learn from the Medical Record, that the grip of an ant's jaw is re- 

 tained even after the body has been bitten off and nothing but the 

 head remains. This knowledge is possessed by a certain tribe of 

 Indians in Brazil, who put the ants to a very peculiar use. When . 

 an Indian gets a gash cut in his hand, instead of having his hand 

 sewed together, as physicians do in this country, he procures five 

 or six large black ants, and, holding their heads near the gash, 

 they bring their jaws together in biting the flesh, and thus pull 

 the two sides of the gash together. Then the Indian pinches off 

 the bodies of the ants, and leaves their heads clinging to the gash, 

 which is held together until the gash is perfectly healed. 



The Cradle of Influenza. 



Professor Tessier, of the medical faculty of Lyons, has returned 

 from Russia, whither be, was sent last March to take evidence 

 upon the course of influenza there, and the various conditions of 

 its evolution. He found, according to the Medical Record, that 

 influenza is a growth of Russian soil, and, when not a raging 

 malady, is a smouldering one. Th^ way the people live in winter, 

 locked up in heated houses; the flatness of the soil, its consequent 

 bad drainage, and universally sodden condition when the April 

 thaw begins; the filthinefs of the farm yards, the village streets, 

 and the rivers, which become suddenly swollen, and on falling 

 leave a putrid mud behind, — all conduce to make influenza 

 endemic. Its microbe is, in fact, to be found in this mud. Dr. 

 Tessier calls it a strepto bacillus. What is peculiar in this dis- 



