November 25, 1887.] 



SCIENCE. 



261 



sources, such as the Finkler-Prior spirillum and the cheese spirillum 

 of Deneke, which closely resemble it. 



" Lustig, director of the cholera hospitals at Trieste, examined 

 the dejecta in one hundred and seventy cases of cholera, and found 

 the spirillum of Koch in every case : on the other hand, the bacillus 

 of Emerich was only found in forty out of the whole number of 

 cases examined. Tizzoni and Cattani also found Koch's spirillum 

 in the contents of the intestine in twenty-four cases examined by 

 them during the epidemic at Bologna in 1886. At Padua, also, 

 researches made by Canestrini and Morpurgo gave the same result: 

 the spirillum was constantly found in the dejecta in recent cases. 

 These observers state that the cholera spirillum retains its motil- 

 ity and reproductive power for a considerable time in sterilized 

 distilled water. They were able to obtain cultures after two months 

 from such water. This important fact has been verified by Pfeiffer, 

 who found, however, that in the presence of common saprophytic 

 bacteria the cholera microbe soon died out. Hueppe has shown 

 that the cholera spirillum forms reproductive elements, which he 

 calls arthrospores. These are not so readily destroyed by desicca- 

 tion as are the fresh bacilli, but they have nothing like the resisting 

 power to heat and chemical agents which characterizes the en- 

 dogenous spores of the bacilli. The exact proportion in which vari- 

 ous disinfecting agents are destructive of the vitality of the cholera 

 spirilla has now been determined with great precision, and will be 

 stated in detail in the report of the committee on disinfectants for 

 the present year. This committee has also made extended experi- 

 ments of the same kind, in which the typhoid bacillus and various 

 other pathogenic organisms have served as the test of germicide 

 power. The chemical products developed in cultures as a result 

 of the vital activity of the cholera spirillum have been studied by 

 Bitter, Buchner, and Contani. The last-named author claims to 

 have demonstrated the presence of a poisonous ptomaine in cholera 

 cultures, which, when injected into the peritoneal cavity of dogs, 

 gives rise to symptoms resembling those of cholera. A recent 

 observation of value is that of Bujwid, who finds that bouillon 

 cultures of the cholera spirillum have a peculiar chemical re-action 

 by which they may be distinguished. According to this author, 

 the addition of a 5- lo-per-cent solution of hydrochloric acid to such a 

 culture gives rise, within a few minutes, to a rose-violet color, 

 which subsequently, when exposed to light, changes to a brownish 

 shade. The re-action does not occur in impure cultures. The 

 Finkler-Prior spirillum is said to give a similar re-action after a 

 longer time, but the color first developed is of a more brownish 

 hue." 



The etiological role and biological character of the typhoid ba- 

 cillus, discovered by Eberth in iBBo, were fully discussed. Dr. 

 Sternberg says that there is very little doubt that this organism is 

 the cause of typhoid-fever, although no satisfactory proof by inocu- 

 lation in lower animals has as yet been found. This, however, 

 he does not regard as surprising, inasmuch as we have no evi- 

 dence that any of the animals experimented upon are liable to 

 contract the disease, as man does, by drinking contaminated water. 

 In speaking of malaria and its causative micro-organism, he said, — 



" Among the most important investigations of the past year are 

 those of Councilman of Baltimore, and Osier of Philadelphia, with 

 reference to the presence of micro-organisms in the blood of ma- 

 larial-fever patients. Both of these observers confirm the discovery 

 of Laveran, who in 1880 announced, as the result of extended re- 

 searches made in Algeria, that blood drawn from the finger of such 

 patients during a febrile paroxysm contains a parasitic infusorium, 

 which presents itself in different phases of development, and which 

 in a certain proportion of the cases was observed as an actively 

 motile flagellate organism. Osier and Councilman have found all 

 of the forms described by Laveran ; and the last-named observer 

 reports that in recent researches in which blood was obtained di- 

 rectly from the spleen, the flagellate form was almost constantly 

 found. Whether the amoeboid ' Plasmodium ' found by Marchiafava 

 and Celli, of Rome, represents an early stage in the development of 

 this organism, or whether it simply represents a change in the red- 

 blood corpuscles, which occurs also in other diseases, as is claimed 

 by iVIosso, has not yet been definitely determined. It is somewhat 

 curious that ju^t when we are receiving satisfactory evidence of 

 the parasite of Laver.m in the blood of malarial-fever patients, the 



bacillus of Klebs and Tomassi-Crudelli, which appeared to be 

 dead and buried, has again been introduced to our notice Ijy the 

 distinguished German botanist Ferdinand Cohn. In his paper, 

 published in June last, he gives an account of the researches of a 

 young physician named Schiavuzzi, who has made researches in 

 the vicinity of Pola, a malarial region in Istria. The method fol- 

 lowed was that of Klebs and Tomassi-Crudelli ; viz., examination 

 of the air and water in malarial localities, and inoculation experi- 

 ments in rabbits. 



" The bacillus was constantly found in the air, and the rabbits 

 inoculated presented symptoms and pathological lesions believed 

 to be identical with those of malarial-fever in man. I cannot at the 

 present time go into a critical discussion of the evidence presented, 

 but would refer you to an experimental research made by myself in 

 New Orleans in the summer of 1880, in which I repeated the ex- 

 periments of Klebs and Tomassi-Crudelli, and arrived at the fol- 

 lowing general conclusions : — 



" Among the organisms found upon the surface of swamp mud, 

 near New Orleans, in the gutters within the city limits, are some 

 which closely resemble, and perhaps are identical with, the bacillus 

 malariae of Klebs and Tomassi-Crudelli ; but there is no satis- 

 factory evidence that these, or any of the other bacterial organisms 

 found in such situations, when injected beneath the skin of a rabbit, 

 give rise to a malarial-fever corresponding with the ordinary palu- 

 dal fevers to which man is subject. 



" I see no reason to modify the opinion here expressed, notwith- 

 standing the indorsement given by Cohn to the results announced 

 by Schiavuzzi. These researches relating to organisms in the air 

 and water, and experiments on rabbits, especially in the hands of 

 an inexperienced investigator, cannot have any great scientific 

 value in the elucidation of an etiological problem. The sources 

 of possible error are too numerous, and the method is in any case 

 inadequate for the complete solution of the problem. It is essential 

 that the infectious agent, especially one so easily demonstrated as 

 this bacillus, be proved to be present in the blood or tissues of 

 malarial-fever patients ; and in the absence of such proof, experi- 

 ments on rabbits, and researches in the air of malarial regions, can 

 have but little weight. It may well be that in the swampy districts 

 of warm climates, where malarial-fevers prevail, one or more species 

 of bacillus will be found in the air or in the water, which are absent 

 from the drier air and running waters of non-malarious uplands ; 

 but this is simply an interesting fact in natural history, relating to 

 the distribution of organisms of this class, and by itself cannot be 

 accorded any value in a consideration of the important question of 

 etiology. The method of research pursued by Laveran, by Marchia- 

 fava and Celli, by Councilman and by Osier, is the true one, and 

 none of these gentlemen have encountered the bacillus of Klebs 

 and Tomassi-Crudelli in their extended researches. On the other 

 hand, they are in accord as to the presence in the blood of a 

 flagellate organism, and of certain spherical and crescentic bodies, 

 which are believed to represent different stages in the life-history 

 of this infusorium." 



The address, taken as a whole, is one of the best which has ever 

 been delivered before the association, and will doubtless excite 

 great interest among sanitarians. We shall take occasion to refer 

 hereafter to some of the recommendations made by Dr. Sternberg, 



THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT IN INDIA. 



Ernst von Weber prints in Ueber Land unci Meer an inter- 

 esting paper on the theosophists of India, and accompanies it with 

 the illustration which is reproduced on p. 262. He calls attention to 

 the fact that students of Volkerpsychologie cannot fail to be im- 

 pressed by India's awakening from her long intellectual sleep. 

 To-day the new and fresh intellectual life may be observed from 

 the Himalayas to Ceylon, and from the Indus to the fruitful lands 

 of Burmah. This movement owes as much to the spread of the 

 English language as to any other one cause. It is now customary 

 for all educated Hindus to be able to speak the English language 

 fluently, and the British Government has helped this on by its sys- 

 tem of schools. 



The Aryan Hindu is naturally of a metaphysical and speculative 

 turn of mind, and it is therefore not to be wondered at that the 



