May 10, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



531 



trying upon the English Ivy which covers 

 many of the older buildings in New Bruns- 

 wick, Xew Jersey. The leaves are mostly 

 brown, many of them dead, and have tlie 

 appearance of having been scorched by lire. 

 It may l)e that the plants will revive with 

 warm weather, Init these old vines, which 

 have been the pride of the city, are just now 

 anything but attractive. 



SOCIETIES AXD ACADEMIES. 

 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



At the meeting of April 20 Dr. Frank 

 Baker exhibited specimens and gave de- 

 scriptions of two anomalous forms of human 

 lumbar vertibne hitherto undescribed. 



Dr. Theobald Smith read a paper entitled 

 ' An Infectious Entero-hepatitis of Turkeys. 

 Caused by Protozoa." 



The first intimation of the existence of 

 this hitherto unrecognized disease was given 

 by some diseased organs sent by Mr. Sam- 

 uel Cushman of the Ehode Island Experi- 

 meet Station in 1803. In 189-t the speaker 

 had an opportunity of studying a number 

 of cases in various stages of the disease. 



This begins in the cfeca and manifests 

 itself by a more or less uniform thickening 

 of the wall. When this has continued for 

 some time an exudate is poured out fi-om 

 the mucous membi-ane, which coagulates 

 firmly and occludes the tube itself more or 

 less completely. The cause of the thicken- 

 ing of the ciecal wall is a protozoou from 

 6 to 10 n in diameter, which multiplies very 

 rapidly within the connective tissue intei-- 

 stices of tlie mucous and submucous ti.ssue. 

 Tlie irritation jiroduced by these bodies in- 

 duces jiroliferation of the connective tissue 

 cells. The thickening is fiirther increased 

 bj- cell infiltration, due to inflammatory 

 processes which appear later on, and which 

 may be due to the absorption of bacterial 

 products from the denuded mucosa. 



In almost every case the liver is second- 

 arily and usually very severely involved by 



the transportation of these protozoa from 

 the seat of the disease in cseca through the 

 portal system. The liver becomes covered 

 with round isolated and confluent patches 

 of a j'ellowish or brownish color, which rep- 

 present necrotic foci in the substance of the 

 liver itself. Within these, in the earlier 

 stages, large numbers of the same protozoa 

 may be found. 



The protozoon. as stated above, is a 

 spherical or slightlj- oval body, of a homo- 

 geneous appearance and containing an ex- 

 ceedingly minute ring-like nucleus. It has 

 shown none of the characters of sporozoa. 

 Its rapid multiplication within the ti.ssue 

 spaces, where it may be seen either isolated 

 or in groups of two, three, four or manj- in- 

 di^^duals, as well as the absence of anj- in- 

 tercellular stage, has induced the writer to 

 place it, at least provisionally, in the genus 

 Amceba. and, in consultation with Dr. Stiles, 

 to denominate it Amaba meleagridis. A de- 

 tailed account of this investigation is to ap- 

 pear in a forthcoming bulletin of the Bu- 

 reau of Animal Industry. 



Dr. G. Browne Goode read a paper on 

 ' The Horizontal and Vertical Distribution 

 of Deep Sea Fishes.' The paper had for its 

 object to demonstrate that the accepted 

 ideas in regard to tlie distribution of deep 

 sea fishes, having been founded on incom- 

 plete data, are eixoneous ; and that, con- 

 traj-y to the commonly accepted opinion, 

 no separation of deep sea fish life into hori- 

 zontal strata is possible. On the other 

 hand, the idea that the fish fauna of the 

 depths of the sea is the same in all parts of 

 the world is without foundation. 



Through the application of a percentage 

 method eleven well marked faunal regions 

 were shown to exist, as well as two sub- 

 regions. The regions proposed were as fol- 

 lows : 



1. Boreal Atlantic. 



2. Eastern Atlantic or Lusitanian, with a 

 Mediterranean sub-region. 



