570 SDMMAEY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



the eggs must be opened from tlie first day of incubation up to the time 

 of the hatching of the chicks, and the albumen as well as the organs and 

 blood of the embryo examined. In this way the phases in the develop- 

 ment of the tubercle bacillus and the time of its penetration into the 

 embryonic tissue may be ascertained. 



The author further expresses the opinion that the virus infects the 

 embryo through the area vasculosa, which picks it up and passes it on 

 to the liver, for this is the first point at which its effects are perceived. 

 The lung affection is subsequent to that of the liver, for it probably 

 does not take place through the amniotic fluid swallowed by the embryos, 

 since in these the digestive tract is not affected in the same way as it is 

 in the adult. 



Bacillus murisepticus pleomorphus, a new pathogenic Schizo- 

 mycete.* — Dr. J. Karlinski has isolated from the pus of an abscess on 

 the lower part of a thigh, and also from that found in a case of puerperal 

 septicEemia, a bacterium which has certain resemblances to Hauser's 

 Proteus. It appears under all the various shapes characteristic of 

 Schizomycetes generally, ranging from cocci to spirUla. Its most con- 

 stant form is a rodlet about 2J times as long as broad, and these are 

 frequently seen in pairs. The longer forms are motile, and the shorter 

 possess a tendency to form zoogloea masses. The bacillus was cultivated 

 on the usual media, and seems to thrive better on gelatin, which it 

 liquefies, than on agar. 



"White mice inoculated with pure cultivations rapidly die, the organ 

 most affected being the spleen, which is much enlarged and almost 

 difSuent. White rats, guinea-pigs, rabbits, and dogs were also inocu- 

 lated, but showed themselves less sensitive, though guinea-pigs and 

 rabbits died if injected directly in a blood-vessel. Frogs injected in the 

 dorsal lymph-sac died in 2-4 days. With regard to these last animals, 

 the author notes that he had found the bacilli in their white corpuscles, 

 but never, even in the splenic blood, in the warm-blooded animals. 



Variations of Vibrio Proteus. f — Dr. G. Firtsch gives an account of 

 some variations of Vibrio Proteus (Finkler-Prior's comma bacillus) 

 which appeared in a cultivation that was certainly pure originally. 

 The first variation was remarked in a plate cultivation 307 days old, 

 and the new vibrio was distinguished from the true V. Proteus by the 

 colonies having a more wavy contour, being of a yellowish colour, and 

 being beset with small prominences. In two or three days' time the new 

 vibrios were found to be massed together in the centre of the colonies. 

 These differences were seen not only in 10 per cent, meat-pepton-gelatin, 

 but in other media, in tube cultivations ; and on microscopical examina- 

 tion, other distinctions could also be observed, but these were not so 

 marked. The behaviour of this vibrio on nutrient gelatin may therefore 

 be regarded as being the chief criterion of this variation, which was also 

 found, together with the real Vibrio Proteus, in two cultivations a year 

 old. 



Two other variations were obtained from the original cultivations at 

 still later periods. They are called vibrios 2 and 3, and show some 

 slight differences from each other and from the original, the most notice- 



* Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. Parabitenk., v. (1889) pp. 193-207 (1 pi.)- 

 t Arch. f. Hygiene, viii. (1888) p. 369. 



