ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 541 



Investigation and Culture of Pathogenous Bacteria.* — Felileisen 

 gives a resume of the methods pursued by Koch and others in the 

 investigation of pathogenous bacteria. In the case of " panaritium " 

 to which the fingers of servant-girls are especially liable, and which 

 is frequently epidemic, he finds a very small micrococcus forming 

 zoogloea colonies, which spreads over the surface as a yellow coating, 

 which can be well cultivated on gelatin. This microccoccus appears 

 to be almost exclusively confined to cases of panaritium. 



Earthworms in Propagation of Charbon-f— M. Feltz reports 

 that, making a preparation of earth after the method of Koch, he 

 placed in it fourteen earthworms ; some three weeks later he removed, 

 one by one, six worms, which he washed carefully ; after as carefully 

 cutting them up he injected them into guinea-pigs. These all 

 died in less than three days ; those inoculated by the first washings of 

 the worms likewise died rapidly, while those treated by the last 

 resisted the action of the poison. The author agrees, therefore, with 

 Pasteur and disagrees with Koch as to the role of earthworms. Some 

 experiments on the attenuation of the j)oison were made by preparing 

 slightly alkaline and sterilized infusions of chicken-broth, in which 

 the charbon-poison was cultivated ; by placing fresh cultivations in 

 stoves heated and kept to a temperature of 42° to 43° C, Feltz was 

 able to convince himself that the poison loses its virus in direct pro- 

 portion to the time of exposure, and that it may be completely lost. 

 The morphological expression of this is to be seen in the tenuity of 

 the bacterian filaments, and a certain shrinking of the germs. It 

 would seem to be certain that nature may accomplish an analogous 

 operation in the earth, and that we may thus explain the variations 

 in the gravity of attacks by this poison. Examination of different 

 victims leads to the belief that the " spontaneous " cure of the poison 

 is effected by the destruction and elimination of the bacteria by the 

 digestive tract. The paper concludes with the account of some suc- 

 cessful vaccination experiments. 



Transmission of Bacteria from the Soil into the Air.J— In the 

 course of a research on the presence of bacteria in the effluvium and 

 vapours of the fever districts, J. Brautlecht mixed baked sand, gritty 

 earth, and tolerably loamy garden mould with liquid containing 

 bacteria, and covered the mixture with a bell-glass according to the 

 requisite rules of precaution. A few hours after there were, in the 

 vapour condensed under the bell-glass, a great number of micro- 

 organisms, of the same form invariably as those contained in the 

 liquid used. The number of organisms raised by evaporation was 

 great in proportion to the quality of the fluid soaking the earth ; they 

 were on the other hand fewer in number when cooled sand was 

 sprinkled over the damp earth. 



* SB. phys.-med. Gesell. Wiirzburg, 1882, pp. 113-21. 

 t Comptes Eendus, xcv. (1882) pp. 859-62. 



X Tagebl. Deutsch. Naturf.-Vers. Eisenach, 1882. Cf. Xaturforscher, xvi. 

 (1883) p. 156. ' 



