May 15, 1891.] 



SCIENCE. 



271 



course will consist of laboratory work on the culture and propa- 

 gation of bacteria, identification of species, and of lectures and 

 demonstrations by the director. Only those who are vvell prepared 

 by previous study and experience in biological or medical work 

 will be admitted to the course. 



Students who pursue the general course of instruction during 

 the summer, and who have time for extra work, are given the in- 

 struction and facilities necessary to enable them to carry on special 

 investigations ; while those students who have already gained the 

 knowledge and experience which is provided by the general course, 

 will be permitted to give their entire time to special work. 



The laboratory will open for the season on Tuesday, July 7. 

 The regular session for students will continue from that date until 

 Friday, Aug. 28. The number of students for the season of 1891 

 js limited to twenty- five. 



A good reference library will be placed at the service of students, 

 and a collection of alga will serve to guide students in marine 

 botany. In addition to the regular lectures given in connection 

 with the laboratory work, evening lectures will occur two or three 

 times a week, illustrated by the aid of a magic lantern. The 

 lantern is provided with a vertical attachment and with large and 

 small cells, in which forms of life may be placed and their structure 

 exhibited on the screen. A microscopic attachment to the lantern 

 will enable lecturers to demonstrate points in minute anatomy, 

 and a large collection of lantern slides of biological subjects will 

 furnish the means for comparison of many allied forms and struct- 

 ures. The evening lectures will be open to the public, and per- 

 sons interested may secure admission to the entire course. 



For further particulars inquire of Professor Franklin W. Hooper, 

 Secretary, Brooklyn Institute, Brooklyn, N.Y., or of Professor 

 Herbert W. Conn, Ph.D., Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn. 

 Applications for admission as students should be sent to the sec- 

 retary of the institute. 



THE ETIOLOGY OF TETANUS. 



In a late number of the Annales de Tlnstitut Pasteur there ap- 

 pears (from the Bacteriological Laboratory of VaI-de-GrS,ce) a 

 most interesting paper on tetanus by Drs. Vaillard and Vincent, 

 an abstract of which is printed in a recent issue of the Lancet. 

 This paper appears to throw very considerable light on the subject 

 of tetanus, and to clear up a number of points and obser% ations 

 that have hitherto been enshrouded in obscurity. After describ- 

 ing the organism, and identifying it with that already made 

 familiar through the papers of recent writers, the authors give it 

 as their firm opinion that in cases of artificial inoculation of pure 

 cultures it is always the poison introduced along with the bacillus, 

 and not the organism itself, that acts upon the animal. This in- 

 deed seems to be probable, as they are able to prove that almost 

 inconceivably minute doses of this poison, which they compare 

 with snake poison, are quite sufficient to produce all the symp- 

 toms of most acute tetanus ; in fact, it was almost impossible, 

 from some of the cultures that they obtained, to administer a dose 

 that was not lethal. 



An exceedingly interesting feature brought out in the course of 

 their work is that in no case was the poison developed as soon as 

 the organism began to grow; in fact, gelatine cultures of the 

 tetanus bacillus were never capable of producing toxic symptoms 

 until liquefaction of the gelatine had commenced, when spores 

 were demonstrated to have been formed, and when the peculiarly 

 disagreeable odor so characteristic of tetanus cultures had become 

 perceptible. They associate both the odor and the peptonizing 

 power with the formation of the poison in the cultures. That it 

 was not due merely to the presence of the spores that the material 

 was poisonous they demonstrated by heating their cultures to a 

 temperature of 63" C, for a short time (a temperature which is 

 quite incapable of interfering with the vitality of the spores), 

 when it was found that cultures so heated and introduced by in- 

 oculation into a rabbit or a guinea-pig failed to produce any teta- 

 nus, thus proving that, although the spores are not killed, the 

 poison has been destroyed by the heat. The spores were proved 

 to be living by making fresh cultures from them in artificial 

 media; after a time they grew luxuriantly, and if left to grow 

 eight or ten days produced another crop of the poison. By simply 



washing away the poison from the spores with distilled water they 

 also obtained similar results, for, although the spores could still 

 develop and form the specific poison in artificial media, they 

 were, when inoculated, incapable of giving rise to any symptoms of 

 tetanus. From the re-action to heat of a substance they were able to 

 separate, and from its resemblance to the diastases in other respects, 

 they conclude that they have obtained from tetanus cultures the 

 true tetanus poison, a poison, however, that cannot be formed by 

 the tetanus bacillus in healthy tissues. The micro-organisms ar& 

 here so rapidly attacked by the leucocytes that they are rendered 

 liors de combat before they have time to form their poison. 



It has long been well known that the tetanus bacillus could 

 not develop in the tissues except, apparently, in the presence of 

 other organisms, and the suggestion is offered that these other 

 organisms act in one of two ways ; they either paralyze the activ- 

 ity of the leucocytes, or they draw off, as it were, their attention 

 and activity from the tetanus bacillus, thus allowing it sufficient 

 time to develop its characteristic products. 



It is interesting to note that Drs. Vaillard and Vincent consider 

 that in many respects the tetanus bacillus is extremely like the 

 diphtheria bacdlus, the method of action on and in the organism 

 being essentially the same in the two cases, the above factors in 

 all probability playing a part in diphtheria much as in the case of 

 tetanus ; and it is evident that in studying the one poison much 

 light may be thrown on the other. Behring and Kitasato ap- 

 preciated this fact, and combined their forces to work out the 

 question of immunity in these two diseases. It is obvious, how- 

 ever, from a consideration of some of the points that are indicated 

 in this paper, that there are many sources of fallacy that will 

 have to be eliminated before the ultimate explanation of the con- 

 dition of immunity in protected animals can be given. 



The facts that this poison is active in such extraordinary roinute 

 quantities, and that the micro-organisms are able to grow with 

 such difficulty in the human tissues, allow us to hope that ex- 

 tremely minute changes in the blood niay be quite sufficient to 

 secure the alteration or breaking-down of the virulent poison, even 

 when it has become diffused throughout the system. So long as 

 the ox^ganism is localized to the wound, there is, of course, more 

 chance of coping successfully with the disease, although here, as 

 in other diseases, there always appears to be a possibility of the 

 poison exerting such a paralyzing influence on the cells that usu- 

 ally take up foreign substances, that secondary septic conditions 

 may be liable to occur even when the action of the tetanic poison 

 can be antagonized so far as its primary effects on the cells are 

 concerned. 



One question appears to be set at rest, and that is, as regards 

 tetanus and diphtheria, the ptomaines have had their day, what- 

 ever may become of the products of other organisms. It may be 

 accepted that here, at any rate, we have some subtle poison 

 which, although it has not yet been actually separated, has be- 

 come so far isolated that it may be taken as proved that it is not 

 an alkaloid or basic poison. 



A most remarkable feature is that, in peptonizing gelatine with 

 the filtrate from a meat-broth culture of the tetanus bacillus, the 

 poisonous properties are lost to a certain degree in direct propor- 

 tion to the amount of gelatine that is peptonized; this, taken in 

 conjunction with the fact that the properties are not developed 

 until the gelatine begins to liquefy, has led Drs. Vaillard and 

 Vincent to suppose that the same agent that peptonizes the gela- 

 tine is the active agent in bringing about the development of the 

 toxic symptoms of tetanus. 



One of the many important uses to which electric welding 

 machines are put is welding railroad rails. Owing to the 

 difficulty of maintaining rails in crowded and paved city streets, 

 it is an advantage to have the rails as long as possible, thereby re- 

 ducing the number of joints to be cared for, and during the past 

 year a company in Johnstown, N. Y., has been successfully ex- 

 perimenting in electrically welding rails up to 110 pounds per yard. 

 This company is now having constructed one of the largest 

 machines ever built for the purpose. As a result of careful tests, it 

 is claimed that a saving of at least thirty-four per cent is effected 

 by the electric welding process as compared with the older method. 



